On 3 May 1810 George Gordon, Lord Byron, swam like the mythic Leander from Sestos on the European side of the Hellespont to Abydos on the Asian shore. The hero of his poem "Don Juan" has lived in âfeminine disguiseâ in the sultan's harem for more than a century. To commemorate Byron's Don Juan, the third volume of the "Ottoman Empire and European Theatre" series focuses on the image of the harem in literature and theatre. Nineteen international contributors explore historical conceptions of the Ottoman harem and seraglio in British, French and South East European sources from the late seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries.
Contributions by Jennifer L. Airey, GönĂŒl Bakay, Michael Chappell, Anne Greenfield, Isobel Grundy, Bent Holm, Michael HĂŒttler, Hans Peter Kellner, Emily M. N. Kugler, Andreas MĂŒnzmay, Domenica Newell-Amato, Walter Puchner, Marian Gilbart Read, KĂ€the Springer, Stefanie Steiner, Laura Tunbridge, Himmet Umunc, Hans Ernst Weidinger, Mi Zhou.