In April 1864 Emmeline Lott arrived in Egypt to assume her position as governess for the grand pacha Ibrahim, son of Ismael Pacha, the Turkish viceroy of Egypt. In August of the same year she departed Constantinople for England, her employment by one of the wealthiest families of the nineteenth century finished. During the next few years she published three highly (some might say excruciatingly) detailed accounts of her observations about the Ottoman harems. Though contemporary reviewers complained about her minute observations of food, clothing, daily activities, and living conditions, her insights may provide the best available account of life in the viceregal household.

Like her brief sojourn, Lott's books brought her little profit or recognition. The most recently published edition of one of her books seems to have been an 1893 volume of her first work, The Governess in Egypt: Harem Life in Egypt and Constantinople (1865), which was retitled...