The Lustful Turk
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Lustful Turk or Lascivious Scenes from a Harum is a Pre-Victorian British erotic literature epistolary novel first published anonymously in 1828. However, this was not widely known or circulated until the 1893 edition was printed.
It consists largely of a series of letters written by its heroine, Emily Barlow, to her friend, Sylvia Carey. When the Emily Barlow sails from England for India in June 1814 their ship is attacked by Turks and afterwards they are taken to the harem of a Turkish dey.
For a detailed analysis of this early exploration of the Stockholm syndrome or damsel in distress trope, see Steven Marcus's The Other Victorians, pp. 195-217.
This work was influential to many other works of erotica, and in fact the theme of the virgin who is forcibly introduced to sexual acts and later becomes insatiable in her appetite for the carnal is a common theme in Victorian erotica. One such work is "The Sheik" written by Edith Maude Hull, and published in 1921.
Other such works would be, "The Way of a Man with a Maid", a classic work of Victorian erotica concerning the forcible seduction of a girl called Alice by a Victorian gentleman or "My Grandmother's Tale, or May's Account of Her Introduction to the Art of Love", first published in Victorian Erotica periodical "The Pearl".
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Comparison to Fanny Hill
- "There alone she existed, all lost in those delicious transports, those ecstasies of the senses . ...In short she was a machine (like any other piece of machinery) obeying the impulses of the key that so potently set her in motion." -- Lustful Turk (1828) -- quoted in Modernism, Mass Culture, and the Aesthetics of Obscenity (2000) - Allison Pease
Compare these lines to the following excerpt of Fanny Hill (1750) of which the first line "There alone she existed, all lost in those delicious transports, those ecstasies of the senses "is nearly identical except for delicious which becomes delirious. Both excerpts use the machine as metaphor.
- "[t]here alone she existed, all lost in those delirious transports, those extasies of the senses, which her winking eyes, the brighten'd vermilion of her lips and cheeks, and sighs of pleasure deeply fetched, so pathetically express'd. In short, she was now as mere a machine as much wrought on, and had her motions as little at her own command as the natural himself, who thus broke in upon her, made her feel with a vengeance his tempestuous tenderness, and the force of the mettle he battered with; their active loins quivered again with the violence of their conflict, till the surge of pleasure, foaming and raging to a height, drew down the pearly shower that was to allay this hurricane." --Fanny Hill
1828 title page
Supposedly based on true events:
- "A history founded on facts, containing an interesting narrative of the cruel fate of the two young English ladies, named Silvia Carey and Emily Barlow. Fully explaining how Emily Barlow, and her servant, Eliza Gibbs, on their passage to India, were taken prisoner by an Algerine pirate, and made a present of to the Dey of Algiers; who, on the very night of their arrival debauched Emily. Containing also, every particular of the artful plans laid by the Dey, to get possession of the person of Silvia Carey - how he effected his purpose - with the particulars of her becoming a victim to his libidinous desires. Which recital is also interspersed with the histories of several other ladies confined in the Dey's Harem. One of which gives an account of the horrid practices then carrying on in several French and Italian convents by a society of monks, established at Algiers, under pretense of redeeming Christian skaves; but who, in reality, carried on an infamous traffic in young girls. Also an account of the sufferings of Eliza Gibbs, from the flogging propensities of the Bey of Tunis. With many other curious circumstances, until the reduction of Algiers by Lord Exmouth; by which means these particulars became known."
See Deborah Lutz 's The Dangerous Lover: Gothic Villains, Byronism, and the Nineteenth-Century Seduction Narrative [1].
1968 film
Directed by Byron Mabe and adapted for film by David F. Friedman, released in the United States on February 7 1968. Plot outline described as "Two English women and their female servant are kidnapped by pirates and sold to an Arab sheik. However, they all fall for the captain of the pirate ship that captured them." IMDb
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