The Lustful Turk
2.5/5
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About this ebook
The Lustful Turk is a pre-Victorian erotic novel written as a series of letters from the main female character, Emily Barlow. Abducted at sea by Moorish pirates, Emily is held captive in a harem in Algiers, where she experiences the awakening of her sexuality.
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Reviews for The Lustful Turk
11 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5This book is erotica. Since it's really hard to review erotica without mentioning things that erotica is basically about, but which might give persons of delicate sensibilities the vapours, I've hidden the whole thing under a "spoiler" tag.
This book was quite hard to rate, but I finally settled on two stars because it wasn’t well enough written (even acknowledging that 19th-century erotica probably wasn’t meant to be great literature) to deserve any more. It’s an epistolary novel, told entirely as a series of letters - mostly from Emily Barlow to her friend, Sylvia Carey.
Emily, who is in love with Henry (Sylvia’s brother), gets sent off to India for reasons that are never made clear, and don’t matter because she never arrives. Instead, she and her maid, Eliza, end up getting kidnapped by pirates and sold as harem slaves. Emily ends up with the Dey of Algiers, and Eliza with the Dey of Tunis. Since this is erotica, what happens next is entirely predictable. Emily is raped by the Dey, but pretty soon realises that (after the whole messy, painful deflowering is over) sex is great, and the Dey is really good at it, so she’s entirely happy with the situation.
Emily gets to hear the stories of two other harem slaves - an Italian woman and a Greek girl. The Italian woman was captured on the way to Corsica with her new husband (she is so modest that she is still a virgin); the Greek girl is sold by a corrupt official after her father and fiance are murdered. The story is pretty much the same in all cases, with only the names changed. Additionally, there is a sideways move into the adventures of a pair of Catholic priests, who have a similar line in forcing young women to have sex with them, then selling them to the Turks - including a young novice nun who is faced with being buried alive after trying to escape her convent (after her brothers refused to testify that they forced her to enter it in the first place).
Meanwhile, Emily has been describing her new life as a harem slave in her letters to Sylvia, who is shocked and rather insulting about the Dey when she writes back. Since has been reading the letters, the Dey determines to kidnap Sylvia to punish her - as you do. He manages this, and embarks on a complex charade involving himself pretending to be a French physician and a fake marriage conducted by an English Jew pretending to be a priest. Sylvia, of course, also follows the pattern and becomes quite happy in her new life.
So far, so unoriginal, so distasteful. However, before we mount our 21st century politically-correct high horse and ride madly off in all directions, we should consider that “woman who gets blackmailed/threatened/bribed into a relationship with the hero” is still a staple plot device - in women’s fiction, written by women, for women. While this does not make rape any more acceptable, it does mean that we should consider that it isn’t limited to nineteenth-century erotica written by men. It’s alive and well and living in formula romances written by 21st-century women, although in slightly less blatant form. Likewise, the enduring popularity of “the sheikh”, “the Greek”, “the Italian” and more recently “the Russian mafia boss” in women’s fiction: are we talking racism and stereotype, or are we talking “exciting and exotic”? Whichever it is - and it could be both - modern romances, written by women for women, have the same issues as The Lustful Turk, and you can’t logically censure the one without applying the same standards to the other.
Anyway, moving back to the adventures of the Lustful Turk, all of this bedroom activity is brought to a sudden end by a new slave, who cuts off the Dey’s penis. The Dey then orders his physician to also cut off his testicles, since without the penis they are useless, and has the amputated parts preserved in jars of spirits of wine - one of which he gives to Emily, and the other to Sylvia. After which, the two girls are sent back to England.
Once back in England, the last letter discloses that the jars of wine spirits (and contents) have been donated to Sylvia’s friend who runs an expensive girls’ school; Sylvia’s friend shows them to her students, as a reward for good behaviour. Furthermore, Sylvia has married (a baronet, who has apparently not noticed that she is not the virgin he expected), but Emily is determined not to do so until she can find a man who is sufficiently charming and skilled to replace the Dey in her affections and her bed. She has a “young willing maid” who “auditions” all of her suitors - of whom seven out of ten have been found wanting. Emily discloses that she has hopes that the current one, an Irish earl, will pass the test.
This conclusion to the tale is somewhat unexpected. The “bad guys” - the Turks and the Catholic priests - are portrayed as lovers with great skill as well as stamina and charm (we don’t know about the Jew), able to secure any woman’s love and devotion. Whereas of the “good guys”, Henry is portrayed as a wet blanket who goes into a decline when Emily leaves for India and thereafter does nothing; the Italian woman’s husband is so unmanly that a month after the wedding he still hasn’t consummated the marriage; the Greek girl’s fiance gets stupidly and uselessly murdered (though it's in her defence, and it’s notable that she’s the only one who doesn’t completely fall for the Dey’s charms); the Italian novice nun’s brothers would rather leave her to be buried alive than admit that they forced her into the convent in the first place; Sylvia’s baronet husband is too stupid to notice he hasn’t married a virgin; and as for seven out of ten of Emily’s suitors - they’re just not worthy of her consideration.
Furthermore, the story ends not with the Dey going merrily on with his career of lasciviousness, but instead unable to have sex with anyone - a sort of enforced faithfulness to Emily and Sylvia. Meanwhile, far from being fallen women whose marriage prospects have been destroyed and now face a lifetime of misery and shame, Sylvia has married up (she is now a baronet’s wife) and Emily is determined not to marry at all until she can find a man who meets her high standards - hence the maid (not Emily!) auditioning the candidates. The current candidate is an earl, representing a huge leap in social status for Emily if she deems him worthy of her.
In short, the “foreigners” are consistently portrayed as more “manly” than the women’s male relatives and conventional lovers/husbands, and the two girls - far from being ruined by their experiences - return to England to social success. And the Dey’s parts have been handed off to Sylvia’s friend, not even kept as mementos - and how’s that for crushing to a man’s ego: you give a girl your genitals and she hands them off (like an unwanted birthday present) to be displayed to schoolgirls as a reward for learning their French verbs properly!
The book ends not with, as might be assumed, the men in control, but with the various men dead, mutilated, deceived, or discarded, and Emily and Sylvia in control.
Interesting! - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5An erotic novel first published in 1828, telling the story of various European ladies held as slaves in the Dey of Algiers' harem, via a series of letters. The ending was very sudden - as if the anonymous author ran out of erotic ideas and decided to wrap things up as quickly as possible.
Book preview
The Lustful Turk - HarperCollins
The Lustful Turk
Or Scenes in the Harum of an Eastern Potentate faithfully and vividly depicting in a series of letters from a young and beautiful English lady to her friend in England the full particulars of her ravishment and of her complete abandonment to all the salacious tastes of the Turks, the whole being described with that zest and simplicity which always gives guarantee of authenticity.
Anonymous
HarperPerennialClassicsLogo.jpgCONTENTS
Letter I
Letter II
Letter III
Letter IV
Letter V
Letter VI
Letter VII
Letter VIII
Letter IX
Letter X
Letter XI
Letter XII
Letter XIII
Letter XIV
Letter XV
Letter XVI
Letter XVII
Letter XVIII
About the Author
About the Series
Copyright
About the Publisher
Letter I
Emily Barlow to Sylvia Carey
Portsmouth, Crown Hotel
18 June 1814
Dearest Sylvia
We arrived here early this morning after a most melancholy journey. Time alone can remove the painful impressions which the appearance of poor Henry created as we parted. Never shall I forget the picture of despair he exhibited. Do all you can to comfort him, tell him although I obey my mother’s and my uncle’s wishes, still my heart in every clime will be true to him. Poor Eliza did everything in her power on the road to this place to amuse my wounded feelings, but it was beyond the extent of her artless sophistry to remove the weight that pressed upon my heart. Oh, Sylvia! how cruel is the sacrifice exacted in our obedience to our parents; how happy had I been if this uncle of mine had never existed! My mother, my friend, my lover—all, all I hold dear—sacrificed to the prospect of possessing this uncle’s wealth. Heaven knows how fondly I dwelt upon the hopes of shortly becoming the happy wife of your brother, you may guess (but I pray that you may never feel) the anguish caused by such a separation. But it is decided. I can now only supplicate heaven for a speedy return. On our arrival we found the captain of the Indiaman anxiously expecting us. The wind having been fair for some hours, if we had not appeared as we did, he would have sailed without us; truly happy should I have been if he had; and if I had known that a trifling delay on the road would have prevented our departure, I most certainly would have created it.
Adieu, my dear Sylvia, a long adieu. The boat waits to convey us on board at the Momerbank,
as the captain calls it.
Farewell, Sylvia, comfort poor Henry, when I think of him I feel what it is impossible to describe.
Your unhappy friend,
Emily Barlow
Letter II
Ali, Dey of Algiers, to Muzra, Dey of Tunis
20 September 1814.
Muzra, thy friend greets thee, with thanks for thy late present. I allude to the Grecian maid (for so she was) you sent me with the treasure. The bearer of this dispatch has the care of a pair of beautiful stallions which I lately captured from a tribe of Askulites; they made an inroad into a part of my territories from the desert, but I came upon them by surprise, and properly chastised their presumption: not more than a hundred escaped out of two thousand; indeed I was in no humour to spare them, they having disturbed me in a scene of pleasure, for which mere could be no pardon, but more of this hereafter. The Grecian slave, I rejoice to say again, I found a pure maid; her virginity I sacrificed on the Beiram feast of our Holy Prophet. To cull her sweet flower, I was obliged to infuse an opiate in her coffee.
Again, and again, I thank you for the present—her beauties are indeed luxurious; in her soft embraces I find a sure solace from my anxieties of state, but how strange it is, Muzra, that these slaves, whose destinies depend on our will, rarely give that fervent return to our pleasure so absolutely necessary to the full voluptuous energy of enjoyment. It is true nature will always exert its power over the softer sex, and they frequently give way to its excitement, but the pleasure they experience is merely animal. Thus it is with Zena (so I have named your present): even in the height of our ecstasies, a cloud seems to hang on her beauteous countenance, clearly indicating that it is nature, not love, that creates her transport. This knowledge considerably diminishes the enjoyment her beauties afford me, yet still she has become extremely necessary to my pleasures.
Although the novelty of her charms has gone by, the certainty of having cropped her virgin rose has created a lasting interest in my bosom, which the dissolving lustre and modest, bashful expression of her eyes daily increases—indeed her charms frequently entice me from the arms of another beauty, whom I may say for these last two months I have continually enjoyed without me least abatement of my ardour—on the contrary, my appetite seems to increase by what I feed on. It is true when I think of the pensive charms of Zena I devote a few hours to her arms, but she only acts like the whetstone to the knife, and sends me back to the embraces of my English slave with redoubled vigour and zest. In my next dispatch I will give you an account of my becoming possessed of this girl, who has so enchanted thy friend’s desires.
May our Prophet have thee in his holy keeping.
Ali
Letter III
Sylvia Carey to Emily Barlow
London, 19 June
Fare thee well, dear Emily, and a safe voyage is the nightly prayer of your now lonely friend. I received your letter of yesterday, and hope you will receive this before you sail. Poor Henry has only been once out of his room since your departure. I will not shock you with an account of his wretchedness, but be assured nothing will be left undone to relieve his sufferings, though I tremble for the result; your mother saw him today, she was much shocked at his dejection; but I trust time will do much, and that you may yet be happy in the possession of each other. The providence that separates may again join. It is useless to despond. Take every opportunity of writing to us, by every ship you meet on your passage! God bless you.
Sylvia Carey
(This letter Emily never received, the ship having sailed before it arrived at Portsmouth.)
Letter IV
Emily Barlow to Sylvia Carey
Algiers, 24 July 1814
Dearest Sylvia—I think I see the expression of surprise you experience on perceiving my letter dated from this place. Oh, God, Sylvia, to what a wretched fate has the intended kindness of my uncle devoted your miserable unfortunate friend. Pity me, Sylvia; pity my wretchedness. You have no doubt heard of the cruel treatment experienced by females who are unfortunate enough to fall into the power of these barbarous Turks, particularly those who have any pretensions to beauty; but it is utterly impossible for you, Sylvia, to conjecture anything like my sufferings since we parted. I shudder with agony when I look back to what I have been forced to undergo. Pity me, my dear friend. My tears blot out the words nearly as quick as I write them. Oh God, Sylvia, I have no longer any claim to chastity. Surely never was poor maid so unfeelingly deprived of her virtue. The very day the accursed pirate brought me to this place did the dey, with cruel force, in spite of my entreaties, deprive me of my virginity. In vain I resisted with all the strength nature had bestowed on me. It was no use. In vain I made the harem resound with my cries but no help or assistance came to succour your poor friend; at length, wearied out by struggling in defence of my innocence, my strength at last completely failed me, and my powerful ravisher unrelentingly completed my undoing. Oh, Sylvia, your poor friend is now the polluted concubine of this most worthless Turk.
You no doubt are anxious to hear how I came into his power. The story of my ruin is short. The day after I wrote to you from Portsmouth we sailed down the English Channel with most delightful weather, but in losing sight of land I became extremely seasick, so much so that I could not even crawl upon deck. In this state I continued about three weeks. One day I heard a most unusual noise upon deck, and when I sent Eliza to learn the cause of it, a mate told her that the ship was likely to be attacked by Moorish pirates. You may easily guess our terror at this information, which turned out to be all too true, for shortly the discharge of guns with the shouts of the combatants informed us the work of destruction was begun. The firing continued a considerable time without intermission, and when the discharge of our guns was discontinued, the uproar, cries and groans on the deck became too horrid to describe, or to last long. On a sudden everything became quiet, but a rush we heard coming towards the cabin too surely warned us of our approaching captivity. In an instant the door was burst open, and in rushed a crowd of armed Turks covered with blood. Unable longer to sustain the various emotions with which for the last two hours I had been agitated, and still suffering from the remains of my sickness, I fainted in the arms of Eliza. On recovering my senses I found myself in my berth attended by Eliza, from whom I learned we had been captured by an Algerine corsair, who had ordered every attention to be paid me, and she believed the corsair was making for the Straits of Gibraltar.
In short, about a week after passing Gibraltar, the firing of a salute announced we were under the walls of Algiers; during the passage to this place I was not troubled with any visit from the captain, but immediately the vessel was safely anchored, he came to the cabin, and ordered us in good English to get ourselves ready to go ashore in the course of half an hour. Hearing him speak English so well, I took this opportunity of enquiring what his intentions were respecting us, but was struck speechless by his answering that his intention was to make a present of us to the dey! He added he thought I was particularly worthy of that honour. So profound was my horror at this information, that I in vain essayed for several minutes to speak, and had I not found relief in a flood of tears, most certainly my emotions would have been fatal to me. The brute of a captain observed my tears and coolly remarked, ‘Oh! oh! waterworks! Ah! ah!’ he continued, laughing aloud, ‘if you should happen to be a maid, the dey will make you cry in another way I guess.’ He then returned to the deck. I have since learned that this barbarian is an English renegade.
Poor Eliza appeared as much overcome as myself, for in point of personal attractions few girls could be more well endowed. A strong presentiment of my approaching fate had taken forcible possession of my mind. All Eliza could do or say, brought no relief to my apprehensions. The expiration of this time again brought the captain to the cabin, who, covering us with thick veils, conducted us both on deck. In a few minutes we entered the Watergate of the dey’s harem. It was about half-past six o’clock in the evening of the 12th of this month that I entered this palace, so fatal to my modesty. I had scarcely been in it half an hour ere my virtue received so severe an insult that the complete loss of chastity only could exceed what I suffered. In less than five hours the cruel dey had thoroughly deprived me of every claim to virginity. But you shall know all, just as it happened. Directly we were in the harem we were rather dragged than led into a most sumptuous chamber, at the far end of which sat the dey, apparently about forty-five years of age, smoking a peculiar kind of pipe. The captain immediately prostrated himself, and spoke to him in the Turkish