Istanbul and the Ottoman Empire in Romantic and Victorian Culture

Piya Pal Lapinski explores the transformation of the Ottoman empire (and its Byzantine ghosts) during the period 1800-1900 in terms of its crucial impact on British and European transnational identities. From Romantic Byzantium to operatic sultans and vampiric janissaries, the arc of this book takes on a fascinating but often overlooked area of 19th century studies – the encounter with Constantinople/Istanbul, “the diamond between two sapphires” on the Bosphorus and the effect of the city’s complicated history on Romantic /Victorian writers and artists.

Drawing on unpublished, archival material on Thomas Hope and Julia Pardoe, she provides fresh readings of these writers as well as Byron, Disraeli, Scott and Mary Shelley, among others. Taking up the problems posed by the existence of a global, cosmopolitan empire with its centre in Istanbul and control over borderlands known as “Turkey in Europe,” the book examines these issues against the background of the rise of nationalist movements and ethnic affiliations in the 19th century. Istanbul and the Ottoman Empire in Romantic and Victorian Culture proposes a new approach to understanding the final century of a significant non-Western, Islamic empire.