Footsteps of a Victorian Woman in the Ottoman Middle East: Edith Sykes’ Travel Notes

Abstract

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sense, the purpose of this article is multifarious: First of all, this study will be the initial presentation of the unpublished travel notes of Edith Sykes.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.