English Travellers In The Near East

This is the first issue of the Writer and Their Work series to present an appreciation of a group, as opposed to a single writer. Great Britain has, for at least three centuries, sent a notable series of travellers to the Near East. Their work is critically examined in this essay by Mr Robin Fedden, who writes: 'The Near east is an area indeterminate and not easily defined. For my purposes it includes Arabia; it is bounded on the west by the Nile Valley, and on the east by the deserts that separate Damascus from the Euphrates. Others might set different limits. What, again, constitutes a 'traveller'? Those found here are chosen for literary talent rather than the extent of their peregrinations. I thus include an invalid in Egypt, an ambassador's wife in Constantinople, and (though war is hardly travel) T. E. Lawrence could not be left out.' Robin Fedden's sections on Kinglake and Doughty are particularly valuable, and he has much of interest to say on the work of contemporary writers such as Freya Stark and St. John Philby.

An invaluable compendium of writing on the Middle East including extracts from canonical and less well known travellers’ works.

In this highly acclaimed study, Billie Melman recovers the unwritten history of the European experience of the Middle-East during the colonial era. She focuses on the evolution of Orientalism and the reconstruction - through contact with other cultures - of gender and class. Beginning with the eighteenth century Billie Melman describes the many ways in which women looked at oriental people and places and developed a discourse which presented a challenge to hegemonic notions on the exotic and 'different'. Through her examination of the writings of famous feminist writers, travellers, ethnographers, missionaries, archaeologists and Biblical scholars, many of which are studied here for the first time, Billie Melman challenges traditional interpretations of Orientalism, placing gender at the forefront of colonial studies. 'This book provides a real extension to Edward Said's writing not only in the sense of challenging Edward Said's perspective, but also by adding a significant empirical and conceptual element to the discussion on orientalism. Those interested in women's history, in the cultural politics of cross-cultural encounters and in feminist or cultural theory will find much to engage them, inform them and challenge them in Melman's book.' - Joanna De Groot, Times Higher Education Supplement 'Using the perspectives of both gender and class Melman sets an alternative view of the Orient against that of Said... a much less monolithic and much more complex and heterogenous than that of Said' - Francis Robinson, Times Literary Supplement 'Women's Orients is an important contribution to our understanding of Orientalism. Melman's work is characterized by a fruitful bringing together of the skills of the historian with the sensitive reading of the British women writers...' - Catherine Hall, The Feminist Review 'An excellent work... This book is a must for anyone interested in women's history, both English and Middle Eastern. It is well written and well argued and effectively does what it promises to do' - Afaf Lutfi Al-Sayyid Marsot, The International History Review 'Women's Orients, a project of recovery and analysis, is an important consideration of European women traveller's writing on the Middle East. It provides a rich and detailed interpretation of a feminine version of the Orient' - Sherifa Zuhur, MESA Bulletin 'The book raises provocative issues and suggests complexities that deepen our understanding of colonial changes and representations' - Dorothy O.Helly, American Historical Review.

In English Explorers in the East (1738-1745). The Travels of Thomas Shaw, Charles Perry and Richard Pococke, Rachel Finnegan examines the influential travel writings of three rival explorers, whose eastern travel books were printed within a decade of each other.

This collection of papers is taken from the "Travellers in Egypt and the Near East" conference held at St Catherine's College, Oxford in 1997.

The Arabian Nights is a composite work consisting of popular stories originally transmitted orally and developed during several centuries, with material added somewhat haphazardly at different periods and places. This study was devoted to the impact of The Arabian Nights on four novelists of the nineteenth century: Charlotte Bront, Charles Dickens, George Meredith, and Robert Louis Stevenson. These authors were selected on the ground of their life spans, which encompassed almost the whole century. Because they are among the masters of the English novel, it is reasonable to assume that they did not content themselves with mere imitations resulting in pseudo-oriental tales. Their original creations assimilated the influences from The Arabian Nights, forming new unified structures with interwoven references and allusions, which are to be redetected.

"[This] is a major contribution to our understanding of British interest in, and understanding of, the Middle East between the occupation of Egypt in 1882 and the invasion of Iraq in 2003. James Canton deftly probes into ways that travel writing produced during this period was unavoidably caught up and complicit in the twin developments of mass tourism and imperialism. Organized chronologically and thematically, this study reveals a much richer and more complex range of cultural interactions and mutual engagements than the still powerful notion of a clash between civilisations."--...