''The Lustful Turk, or Lascivious Scenes from a Harem'' is a pre-
Victorian British exploitation
erotic
Eroticism () is a quality that causes sexual feelings, as well as a philosophical contemplation concerning the aesthetics of sexual desire, sensuality, and romantic love. That quality may be found in any form of artwork, including painting, scul ...
epistolary novel
An epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of letters. The term is often extended to cover novels that intersperse documents of other kinds with the letters, most commonly diary entries and newspaper clippings, and sometimes considered ...
first published anonymously in 1828 by John Benjamin Brookes and reprinted by
William Dugdale
Sir William Dugdale (12 September 1605 – 10 February 1686) was an English antiquary and herald. As a scholar he was influential in the development of medieval history as an academic subject.
Life
Dugdale was born at Shustoke, near Coleshi ...
. However, it was not widely known or circulated until the 1893 edition.
Plot
The novel consists largely of a series of letters written by its heroine, Emily Barlow, to her friend, Sylvia Carey. When Emily sails from England for India in June 1814 her ship is attacked by
Moorish pirates
The Barbary pirates, or Barbary corsairs or Ottoman corsairs, were Muslim pirates and privateers who operated from North Africa, based primarily in the ports of Salé, Rabat, Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli, Libya, Tripoli. This area was known i ...
and she is taken to the
harem
Harem (Persian: حرمسرا ''haramsarā'', ar, حَرِيمٌ ''ḥarīm'', "a sacred inviolable place; harem; female members of the family") refers to domestic spaces that are reserved for the women of the house in a Muslim family. A hare ...
of Ali,
dey
Dey (Arabic: داي), from the Turkish honorific title ''dayı'', literally meaning uncle, was the title given to the rulers of the Regency of Algiers (Algeria), Tripoli,Bertarelli (1929), p. 203. and Tunis under the Ottoman Empire from 1671 o ...
of
Algiers
Algiers ( ; ar, الجزائر, al-Jazāʾir; ber, Dzayer, script=Latn; french: Alger, ) is the capital and largest city of Algeria. The city's population at the 2008 Census was 2,988,145Census 14 April 2008: Office National des Statistiques ...
. Ali
rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ag ...
s her and subjects her to his will, awakening her sexual passions. Emily's debasement continues when Ali insists on
anal sex
Anal sex or anal intercourse is generally the insertion and thrusting of the erect penis into a person's anus, or anus and rectum, for sexual pleasure.Sepages 270–271for anal sex information, anpage 118for information about the clitoris. ...
, arousing the horror of her correspondent Sylvia, who expresses her indignation at Ali's behaviour, in a letter that the latter intercepts. Annoyed at her attitude, Ali arranges for Sylvia to be abducted and brought to the slave market of Algiers. After an elaborate charade in which Ali pretends to be a sympathetic Frenchman, bidding to save her from sexual slavery, and engaging her in a fake marriage, he deflowers her and awakens her sexuality, as he had done with Emily. Revealing his true identity Ali enjoys both girls together. This sexual idyll is eventually terminated when an addition to the harem objects to anal rape,
cuts off Ali's penis with a knife, and then commits
suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Mental disorders (including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, anxiety disorders), physical disorders (such as chronic fatigue syndrome), and s ...
. Seemingly unfazed by this, Ali has "his lost members preserved in spirits of wine in glass vases" which he presents to Emily and Sylvia, sending them back to England with these tokens of his affection.
The novel also incorporates interpolated stories concerning the erotic misadventures of three other girls abducted into the harem, and enlarges on the fate of Emily's maid Eliza who, presented by Ali to Muzra,
bey
Bey ( ota, بك, beğ, script=Arab, tr, bey, az, bəy, tk, beg, uz, бек, kz, би/бек, tt-Cyrl, бәк, translit=bäk, cjs, пий/пек, sq, beu/bej, sh, beg, fa, بیگ, beyg/, tg, бек, ar, بك, bak, gr, μπέης) is ...
of Tunis, is bound, flogged and raped in turn.
The book was one of those condemned as obscene by
Lord Chief Justice Campbell when Dugdale was prosecuted in 1857.
[Sova (2006) p.150]
Influences
''The Lustful Turk'' uses the contemporary conventions of the
novel of sensibility
The sentimental novel or the novel of sensibility is an 18th-century literary genre which celebrates the emotional and intellectual concepts of sentiment, sentimentalism, and sensibility. Sentimentalism, which is to be distinguished from sensi ...
and
Gothic romance
Gothic fiction, sometimes called Gothic horror in the 20th century, is a loose literary aesthetic of fear and haunting. The name is a reference to Gothic architecture of the European Middle Ages, which was characteristic of the settings of ea ...
and its exotic Oriental themes are influenced by the life, adventures and writings of
Lord Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and Peerage of the United Kingdom, peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and h ...
. It was influential on many other works of erotica, and the theme of the virgin who is forcibly introduced to sexual acts and later becomes insatiable in her appetite for the carnal is common in later erotica. Such works include ''
The Way of a Man with a Maid
''The Way of a Man with a Maid'' is an anonymous, sadomasochistic,Clifford J. Scheiner (1996), ''The Essential Guide to Erotic Literature, Part One: Before 1920''. Ware, Wordsworth: 326-9 erotic novel, probably first published in 1908. The stor ...
'', a classic work of
Victorian erotica
Victorian erotica is a genre of sexual art and literature which emerged in the Victorian era of 19th-century Britain. Victorian erotica emerged as a product of a Victorian sexual culture. The Victorian era was characterized by paradox of rigid mora ...
concerning the forcible seduction of a girl called Alice by a Victorian gentleman; ''May's Account of Her Introduction to the Art of Love'', first published in the Victorian erotic periodical ''
The Pearl'' and ''
The Sheik'' written by
Edith Maude Hull, published in 1921.
Adaptations
A film adaptation of ''The Lustful Turk'' was directed in 1968 by
Byron Mabe
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and Peerage of the United Kingdom, peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and h ...
with the screenplay written by
David Friedman and starring
Abbe Rentz Abbe may refer to:
People
* Abbe (name)
Places
* Abbe (crater), a lunar impact crater that is located in the southern hemisphere on the far side of the Moon
* Lake Abbe, African lake
* Abbe Falls, waterfalls in India
Other uses
* Abbé, the Fren ...
,
Linda Stiles
Linda may refer to:
As a name
* Linda (given name), a female given name (including a list of people and fictional characters so named)
* Linda (singer) (born 1977), stage name of Svetlana Geiman, a Russian singer
* Anita Linda (born Alice Lake ...
and
Gee Gentell
Gee is the phonetic pronunciation of the letter G.
Gee or GEE may also refer to:
Music
* Gee Records, an American record label
* ''Gee'' (EP), a 2009 EP by Girls' Generation
* "Gee" (The Crows song), 1953
* "Gee" (Girls' Generation song), ...
.
Ingrid Steeger
Ingrid Steeger (; born 1 April 1947) (as ''Ingrid Anita Stengert'') is a German actress and comedian.
Life
Steeger was born in Berlin. She works as a comedian and actress in Germany. She became famous in her role of comedy show ' in the 1970s. ...
played Eliza in the
Erwin C. Dietrich production ' (1971).
In the mystery novel ''Die For Love'' by
Barbara Mertz
Barbara Louise Mertz (September 29, 1927 – August 8, 2013) was an American author who wrote under her own name as well as under the pseudonyms Elizabeth Peters and Barbara Michaels. In 1952, she received a PhD in Egyptology from the Univers ...
(under the pseudonym Elizabeth Peters), plagiarism of ''The Lustful Turk'' is a minor plot point.
Oriental setting
Whereas
Steven Marcus
Steven Paul Marcus (December 13, 1928 – April 25, 2018) was an American academic and literary critic who published influential psychoanalytic analyses of the novels of Charles Dickens and Victorian pornography. He was George Delacorte Professo ...
employed ''The Lustful Turk'' in his construction of the placeless realm of
pornotopia
Pornotopia is an idea in critical theory describing an imagined space determined by fantasies and dominated by human sexual activity, expressed in and encompassing pornography and erotica. The word was coined by American literary critic Steven ...
in Victorian erotica, later writers have stressed the importance of the
orientalist setting in generating a further sexualised charge—the harem as a sort of erotic finishing-school.
[ R. B. Yeazell, ''Harems of the Mind'' (2000) p. 118]
See also
*''
A Night in a Moorish Harem
''A Night in a Moorish Harem'' is an erotic novella published in 1896 under the pseudonym "Lord George Herbert". It is written in the first person in the persona of a shipwrecked British sailor, recounting the night he spent in a Moroccan harem ...
''
Footnotes
References
* Anon, ''The Lustful Turk'' (illustrated). Wordsworth Classic Erotica. 1997
*
Gaétan Brulotte
Gaëtan Brulotte (born 1945) is a prominent Canadian writer from Quebec and a professor of French and Francophone Studies at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
Gaëtan Brulotte studied at Laval University (Quebec City), and earned his Ph.D ...
, John Phillips, ''Encyclopedia of Erotic Literature'', CRC Press, 2006, , p. 841.
* Steven Marcus, ''The Other Victorians: a study of sexuality and pornography in mid-nineteenth-Century England'', Transaction Publishers, 2008, , pp. 195–217.
*
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lustful Turk, The
1828 British novels
British erotic novels
Works published anonymously
British novels adapted into films
Novels about rape
Fiction about suicide
Epistolary novels
Novels set in Algeria
BDSM literature
Female characters in literature
Literary characters introduced in 1828
Fictional Turkish people
Male characters in literature