On 3 May 1810 George Gordon, Lord Byron, swam like the mythic Leander from Sestos on the European side of the Hellespont to Abydos on the Asian shore. The hero of his poem "Don Juan" has lived in feminine disguise in the sultan's harem for more than a century. To commemorate Byron's Don Juan, the third volume of the "Ottoman Empire and European Theatre" series focuses on the image of the harem in literature and theatre. Nineteen international contributors explore historical conceptions of the Ottoman harem and seraglio in British, French and South East European sources from the late seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. Contributions by Jennifer L. Airey, Gönül Bakay, Michael Chappell, Anne Greenfield, Isobel Grundy, Bent Holm, Michael Hüttler, Hans Peter Kellner, Emily M. N. Kugler, Andreas Münzmay, Domenica Newell-Amato, Walter Puchner, Marian Gilbart Read, Käthe Springer, Stefanie Steiner, Laura Tunbridge, Himmet Umunc, Hans Ernst Weidinger, Mi Zhou.

OuvertureMichael Hüttler (Vienna), Emily M. N. Kugler (Washington/DC) and Hans Ernst Weidinger (Vienna/Florence): EditorialForewordsPrologue:Stefanie Steiner (Karlsruhe): Enchantment / Disenchantment: Conceptions of Harem and Seraglio in Selected Literary Sources from 1608 to 1852Act I: English Authors of the Late Seventeenth and Eighteenth CenturiesAnne Greenfield (Valdosta/GA): Veiled in the Seraglio: Whig Messaging in Mary Pixs Tragedy Ibrahim (1696)Hans-Peter Kellner (Copenhagen/Vienna): The Capturing of the Seraglio: From the Life and Work of Aaron Hill (1685-1750)Emily M. N. Kugler (Washington/DC): Playing the Sultana: Erotic Capital and Commerce in Daniel Defoes Roxana (1724)Michael J. Chappell (Danbury/CT): The Pleasures of Friendship and Society: Pekuah and the Arabs Seraglio in Samuel Johnsons Rasselas (1759)Act II: Britain in the Late Eighteenth and Nineteenth CenturiesJennifer L. Airey (Tulsa/OK): Justice and the Bashaw of Merryland: Harem Fantasy, Rape Narrative, and the Trial of Lord Baltimore (1768)Isobel Grundy (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada): English Womens Various HaremsGönül Bakay (Istanbul): Is it possible to have freedom in a prison? Emmeline Lotts The Governess in Egypt (1865)Act III: Byron: The YouthKäthe Springer-Dissmann (Vienna): Now at length were off for Turkey, Lord knows when we shall come back! Byrons Grand Tour to the Bosphorus 1809-1811Mi Zhou (Hong Kong): The Monster Within: Ali Pashas Seraglio in Childe Harolds PilgrimageWalter Puchner (Athens): The Reception of Lord Byron in Greek Theatre and Drama in the Nineteenth CenturyAct IV: Byron: The SultanaLaura Tunbridge (Oxford/UK): The soft hours of Sardanapalus: Music and Effeminacy in Stagings of Byrons SeragliosMarian Gilbart Read (Hampshire): SCHIAVA SON IO, CORSARO!: does the escape from the harem dramatize the Risorgimento struggle in Verdis adaptation of Byrons The Corsair (1814)?Himmet Umunç (Ankara): In Search of Exoticism: Byrons Reveries of the Ottoman OrientIsabelle Moindrot (Tours): "Tamerlan": A Turkish Opera by Peter von Winter for the Paris Opera (1802)Act V: French InfluencesDomenica Newell-Amato (Utica, NY): Of African Monsters and Eunuchs: Colonial Fashioning within the Harem of Jean Racines Bajazet (1672)Michael Hüttler (Vienna): [F]ive hundred very happy women!: The Harem as a Locus of Social and National Identities in Eighteenth-Century German-Language TheatreBent Holm (Copenhagen): The Ambiguous Harem: Moralism and Exoticism in Danish Harem Images of the eighteenth and nineteenth CenturiesAndreas Münzmay (Frankfurt/Main): Musical Representations of the Seraglio in Eugène Scribes Vaudeville Lours et le pacha and in its Adaptations in Nineteenth-Century European TheatreAppendixIndexCurricula Vitae