Author(s): Lesley Blanch

Travel Literature

The classic story of four nineteenth-century women who, for different reasons, gravitated to the wildness of the Middle East and North Africa
Four women who dared to live their romantic fantasies, not just dream them.

Aimee Dubucq de Rivery was a convent girl who was captured by pirates and forced to join the enormous harem of the Turkish sultan. Lady Ellenborough was a society beauty who fled London and became notorious for her love affairs with the important men of Europe, including two kings - Ludwig of Bavaria and Otho of Greece. She lived with an Arab Sheikh in Syria for almost 30 years. Isabel Burton travelled to exotic lands with her explorer husband. Isabelle Eberhardt was born and raised in Switzerland and grew up as a nonconformist, feeling most comfortable in boy's clothes. She lived among the Arabs in the North African desert and described her surroundings in travel writings and journals.

Although of widely different natures, backgrounds and origins, all had this in common - each found, in the East, 'glowing horizons of emotion and daring'. And each of them, in their own way, used love as a means of individual expression, of liberation and fulfilment.

About the Author:
Lesley Blanch was born in London and has travelled over most of the globe. Her essays and articles have appeared in many of Britain's leading periodicals, including the Observer and the New Statesman. She now lives in France