The purpose of this study is to explore Mark Sykes's experiences as a traveler and how they shaped his attitude towards Britain and the Middle East. Renowned for his contribution to the partition of the Ottoman Empire via the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916, this study examines his early observations of the Middle East and his relation to the political agenda of Ottoman-British relations. Sykes's private notes and his publications will be compared for differences enabling us to discern how his two texts reveal his Orientalist mindset and early impressions of the Middle East. With reference to archival sources, this study helps us to understand how Sykes's opinions developed and were formative in the political agenda of the Middle East.

Edith Violet Sykes (1872-1930) is an undiscovered character in the historiography of travel literature. She is the wife of a British agent and diplomat Sir Mark Sykes, who was renowned for his deeds in the Middle East and the Sykes-Picot Agreement. She is actively engaged in politics, establishing Chaldean Relief Committee for Armenian and Assyrian populations, and criticizing the violence in Ireland. Her travel notes in 1906 in the Ottoman Middle East shed light on her Orientalist mindset, the construction of East vis-à-vis the West, and how Victorian-born woman approaches this land and its people. In that sense, the purpose of this article is multifarious: First of all, this study will be the initial presentation of the unpublished travel notes of Edith Sykes. Secondly, the different assets of the Ottoman Middle East such as rivalry among the tribes, people’s living, and political disturbances will be discerned through the British woman whose narration provides assistance for the transition of events into political discourse.