Eothen

In the autumn of 1834, Alexander William Kinglake and a friend, John Savile--recently back from a trip to Russia, Persia, and India--set out for Turkey and the Levant. The two young men went by way of Berlin, Prague, and Vienna to Semlin, where, having crossed the River Save and now in Ottoman territory, they proceeded to Belgrade. At Smyrna Savile was called home, and Kinglake, with his guide and interpreter, went on by himself--by ship to Cyprus and Beirut, then to the Holy Land, Cairo, and finally Damascus. As Barbara Krieger points out in her introduction, with Savile gone and Kinglake on his own in a foreign world, the trip suddenly became something different. Out of those experiences came Eothen.