When Lady Mary Wortley Montagu visited baths in Turkey in 1717, she was the first European woman on record to have ever done so. Montagu’s account of her journey, along with sporadic reports by other travelers, slowly brought the area now known as the Middle East into the consciousness of Western women. By the early 1800s, the taste for things Oriental had firmly gripped Europe.

Richly illustrated with photos and sketches, Dreaming of East examines not just the exotic trappings of the Middle East but the heady freedoms it offered Western women. Trained to defer to men, women travelers were suddenly free to make their own choices. For a woman all too used to her inferior status at home, this venture into the land of latent sexuality and freedom was exhilarating. When she eventually returned to her own society and found herself yet again relegated to second place, she would never be content there again.