Through Persia on a Side-Saddle

Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1898. First US edition. Cloth. Very good +. 362, [1] p. 23 cm. Frontispiece and 32 b&w plates. Green cloth hardcover with gold impressing. Light wear to cloth. Small label on front pastedown and ink date on rear of front free. Map missing.

Ella Constance Sykes (1863-1939) paid two visits to Persia, spending nearly three years there in all. The first took place in October 1894, when her brother Percy invited her to accompany him on his trip to the districts of Kerman and Baluchistan, where he was being sent to establish British consulates. She spent two years in the interior of Persia and was one of the first European women to visit the area. Ella also traveled with her brother on his subsequent missions along the Persian Gulf, visiting the major coastal settlements on the way, and spent the winter of 1896-97 with him in Tehran before returning to England at the end of February 1897. She paid her second visit to Iran some 10 years later when she stayed with her brother in Mashad. Ella's interest in and affection for Persia and its people is evident upon reading this, the first of her three books about the country. She vividly describes her first visit, her long horseback travels, and life in Kerman where she was probably the first European woman ever seen. Her descriptions of Tehran, Fatima's shrine at Koom, Persian ladies and their customs, Persian marriage customs and childrearing, make for entertaining reading to this day. Note rear advertisement for Sykes Patent Tent and Sleeping Valise, an invention of Ella's brother Percy.