First edition.
8vo., original red cloth lettered in gilt on spine and upper board. Boards a little rubbed with some patches of fading, some foxing throughout.
Written by the wife of Sir William Mitchell Ramsay, Scottish archaeologist and New Testament scholar, who also published his own “Impressions of Turkey during twelve years' wanderings” in 1897. By his death in 1939 he had become the foremost authority of his day on the history of Asia Minor.
Archeologist William Mitchell Ramsay, who was renowned for his studies about old Anatolian geography, visited Anatolia several times since the 1880s in order to conduct research and travelled almost every part of the Anatolia for twelve years. His wife, Mrs. W. M. Ramsay joined him in most of these trips, and wrote her impressions about the Ottoman lands in her work “Everyday Life in Turkey”. While the trip of a British lady aroused astonishment in the country, expressions by such a foreign authoress are also interesting. Mrs. Ramsay told of the rural, and city women, gave detailed information about their everyday lives.
“The works of the women travellers wandering on the Ottoman territories in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are important not only because they possess a literary merit but also because they contributed a lot to the knowledge concerning Turkish culture and folklore. These women travellers though not as famous as their predecessor Lady Montagu still reveal significant clues in regard to Turkish lifestyles of the times in their works. Among these travellers are namely Lady Hornby, Mrs. Harvey, Dorina Neave, Lucy Gamett, Mrs. W.M. Ramsay, and Mrs. Max Müller.
All of these travellers were very successful in getting into contact and becoming acquainted with people from all levels of society. Among them only Mrs. Ramsay, accompanied by her husband Mr. Ramsay, a professor from University of Aberdeen, toured in Anatolia. Her delight in these tours are apparent in the following lines from her book Everyday Life in Turkey (London 1897), “the great charm of Turkish travel is that romantic and quaint experiences come almost daily to those who look for them.” (British Women Travellers in Ottoman Territories during the 19th Century by Gul Celkan.)