Travels of Lady Hester Stanhope
Forming the Completion of her Memoirs

This 1846 three-volume work documents the adventures in the Middle East of the unconventional Lady Hester Stanhope (1776–1839).

Charles Lewis Meryon (Author)

9781108042284, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 22 March 2012

400 pages, 4 b/w illus.
21.6 x 14 x 2.3 cm, 0.51 kg

The adventurous and unconventional Lady Hester Stanhope (1776–1839) set off to travel to the East in the early nineteenth century. She had been hostess to her uncle, British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger, and after his death she received a government pension and decided to leave England. Her personal physician Charles Meryon (1783–1877) wrote this three-volume memoir of their travels, first published in 1846. She had a reputation as an eccentric, but thought of herself as the 'Queen of the desert' and indeed achieved considerable influence in the places she travelled to. Eventually she settled in the Lebanon, where she lived out the remainder of her life. Volume 1 describes travels in Greece, Egypt, Palestine and Syria, and an account of being shipwrecked near Rhodes. It concludes with the party's arrival in Damascus, where Lady Hester dressed in men's clothing and refused to wear a veil.

Preface
1. Departure from England
2. Zante
3. Athens
4. Procession of the Sultan to the mosque
5. The author goes to Brusa
6. Departure from Constantinople
7. The author sets out for Smyrna
8. Reception at Alexandria
9. The author returns to Alexandria, in company with Mr Wynne and Mr McNamara
10. Loss of journals
11. Departure from Jerusalem
12. Increased illness of Yusef
13. Preparations for leaving Acre
14. Departure from Acre
15. Governor's visit
16. Dayr el Kamar
Additional note.

Subject Areas: Middle Eastern history [HBJF1]