Ebook: Henrietta Liston's Travels: The Turkish Journals, 1812-1820

An original perspective on the early 19th-century Ottoman Empire

• The first publication of Henrietta Liston’s Turkish journal and associated writings
• A scholarly edition with extensive critical apparatus introducing an almost entirely unknown manuscript containing a significant, extended work of travel writing
• Based on archival research in the Liston Papers that sheds new light on the events described in the journal and the period in which it was written, the Listons’ life in Turkey and their circle of diplomats, travellers and writers
• Makes an important contribution to the recuperation of unpublished women’s travelogues and life writing, and to the study of diplomatic spouses and consorts

Henrietta Liston’s Turkish journal is a significant yet virtually unknown work of women’s travel writing. As the wife of the British Ambassador to the Sublime Porte, Liston had privileged access to the Ottoman elite and diplomatic corps. Her journal reflects on British–Ottoman relations, combining Orientalist perspectives with a human-centred version of the picturesque. It offers astute commentaries on places, people and events – including a plague-ridden Constantinople, a visit to the harem of the Grand Vizier’s deputy, the presentation of ambassadors in the Seraglio and the departure of pilgrims on the hajj.

This edition features Liston’s journal alongside a selection of her other, shorter writings relating to her time in Turkey, including accounts of diplomatic incidents and personal experiences. It offers an innovative coupling of print publication, providing a modernised, accessible edition of Liston’s travel writing with supporting critical apparatus, alongside an online resource containing a complete set of digitised images of the original manuscripts and semi-diplomatic transcriptions.

Find out more

• Watch: 'Henrietta Liston: Approaching Constantinople, 1812-1820' on Youtube
• Explore: 'The North American journeys of a diplomat's wife: The journals of Henrietta Liston, 1796–1801', the online resource from the National Library of Scotland