Europe's Myths of Orient

8vo. ix (i), 166 pp, list of 10 b&w plates, acknowledgments, Introduction, 1. Lewd Saracens; 2. The Text as Pretext; 3. The Salon's Seraglio; 4. Doughty Travellers; 5. Among the Believers; Conclusory Remarks: The Innocents Abroad; notes and references, bibliography, index. First Edition, 1986. Green cloth with gilt lettering to spine. "The author places emphasis on the Victorian artists and adventurers who devised the cult of Orientalism in the nineteenth century. She presents an incisive review of the poets, painters, pornographers, soldiers, and scholars who reinforced each other's racial, sexual, and class biases during the subjugation of North Africa and the Middle East, illustrating and explaining the European male's fantasy relationship with the harem; Victorian gentlemen's projection of sexual deviance, indolence, betrayal, and vengeance onto their fictional sultans, eunuchs, and dancing slave girls; and the obsession of Western writers with the archetypal femal figures of Cleopatra, Salome, and Scheherazade." from the jacket flap.