Dr Hisham Khatib has spent almost 40 years amassing the vast and historically valuable collection of representations of the Near East featured in this book. The artworks included here (paintings, prints, maps, books, photographs, and even postcards) depict the Holy Land during the Ottoman period (1517-1917). The stunning images are accompanied by an engaging and deeply informative text.

Contents: Introduction (Sarah Searight); Travelling to post: Lady Liston, an ambassadress in Constantinople (Deborah Manley); Two feisty ladies in the Levant: Princess Caroline and Lady Craven (Charles Plouviez); Travels in the Slavonic provinces of Turkey-in-Europe: Miss Muir Mackenzie and Miss Irby (Dorothy Anderson); Three travellers in nineteenth-century Egypt: Sarah Belzoni, Amelia Edwards and Margaret Benson (Megan Price); Lucie Duff Gordon: a woman's perception of Egypt (Sarah Searight); Governess to the Grand Pasha of Egypt: Emmeline Lott (Alix Wilkinson); The unknown pilgrimage to Sinai (Deborah Manley); Archaeologists' wives as travel writers (Elizabeth French); Women's perceptions of, and perceptions of women in, Egypt's Eastern desert (Janet Starkey). (Oxbow Books in Association with ASTENE, forthcoming 2005)