Constantinople and the Bosphorus

This is the first translation of three accounts by Pierre Loti (1850-1923) of his visits to Constantinople: a description of his brief visit in 1890; of his stay in 1910 in order to visit the tomb of his lover; and the account of his visit in 1913, invited as he then was by the Turkish authorities as their thank-you for all his support of their cause on the international scene after the Balkan Wars. Pierre Loti (1850-1923) was born Louis-Marie-Julien Viaud into a Protestant family in Rochefort in Saintonge, South-West France (now Charente Maritime). He was an officer of the French Navy and a prolific author of considerable note in 19th-/early-20th-century France, publishing many novels and numerous accounts of his travels around the world. He was a member of the French Academy. Loti's volume was published in 1921, by which time he was ill and unable to continue. Publication was completed by his son, Samuel Viaud (1889-1969), who appears on the title page. Loti was a photographer of note and the volume is greatly enhanced by the reproduction of some of his photographs taken in and around Constantinople at the time of his visits.