Behind An Eastern Veil A Plain Tale of Events Occurring in the Experience of a Lady Observing the Inner Life of Ladies in the Upper Class in Persia
Behind An Eastern Veil A Plain Tale of Events Occurring in the Experience of a Lady Observing the Inner Life of Ladies in the Upper Class in Persia

Behind An Eastern Veil A Plain Tale of Events Occurring in the Experience of a Lady Observing the Inner Life of Ladies in the Upper Class in Persia

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Wills, C. J. Behind An Eastern Veil: A Plain Tale of Events Occurring in the Experience of a Lady who had a unique Opportunity of Observing the Inner Life of Ladies in the Upper Class in Persia. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1894. First Edition. [5197]

Blue publisher's cloth, titles & decoration in white and gilt, 8 1/2 x 6 1/4 inches, small nick to headband, corners worn, (vi), 376 (1) generally clean pp., shadow in the margin of the tp from something laid in at one time or other. Good. Hardcover. 

Charles James Wills (1842-1912) English physician, traveler, and author who wrote about his fifteen years' experience, from 1866 to 1881, as a medical officer for the Indo-European Telegraph Department, mainly in Hamadan, Isfahan, and Shiraz. He was also the author of several popular mysteries.

"It may be well that I should state that the descriptions in this book are absolutely accurate.  The episode of the 'Crown of Glory' really took place; while the account of the great earthquake in Shiraz is given from the lips of one who was present at that appalling catastrophe.  Strange things are here described, but they have happened, and will happen again: nothing is exaggerated, nothing overdrawn, in this Plain Tale of life in Persia." - Preface.

"It goes without saying that if there is any English author qualified to speak with authority upon the manners and customs of the "Land of the Lion and the Sun," it is Mr. Wills. Curiosity, therefore, accompanied by confidence, will be stimulated by his new book...The narrator and heroine of the "Plain Tale" is an English girl, Madge Methuen, who travels to Persia to join her father, Methuen Beg, who has married a Persian princess of great wealth, Badr-u-Dowlet, grand-daughter of his late Majesty, Futteh Ali, and had in consequence turned Mussulman. What follows is Miss Methuen's spirited narrative of her residence in the capital and the society there; her father's own history; and finally the earthquake and 'night of horror,' in which she loses both parents, and is rescued by Frank Reece, of the Uncovenanted C. Service, whom, of course, she eventually marries." - The Bookseller, volume 1894.