Through Persia on a Side-Saddle.

London: A. D. Innes & Company, Ltd,, 1898. Now I had a sense of freedom and expansion which quickened the blood and made the pulse beat high First edition of this scarce travel account. Sykes was "the first European woman to visit" the interior of Persia when she spent two years in the area with her brother Percy Molesworth Sykes from 1895 (ODNB). The Times considered her book a "very readable narrative" delivered in a "fresh and lively manner". Though well-represented institutionally, it is uncommon in commerce. Ella Constance Sykes (1863-1939) was among the earliest students at Lady Margaret Hall, the Church of England foundation for women students at Oxford, and later a member of the Central Asian Society and Secretary of the Royal Asiatic Society. She had never been beyond Europe when her brother asked her to accompany him to Kerman and Baluchistan, where he was being sent to establish consulates. They travelled along the Persian Gulf, visiting all the major coastal settlements on the way, and returned to Tehran before journeying home in February 1897. "She surprised herself by assenting right away and relished the harsh journey across Russia and the Caucasus, the voyage across the Caspian Sea to Tehran and the subsequent trek into the heart of Persia: its keen hardships cauterized her Western indolence into an acute sense of awareness" (Robinson). Especially notable are the sections on Persian women and the customs of the country: "when it is time for a Persian youth to get married-which he can legally do at the age of fifteen, and the girls and that of twelve, his mother goes to inspect a suitable wife for him. If she does not know of any likely maiden she enlists the services of an old woman, whose office it is to go from house to house and act as an intermediary in matrimonial arrangements" (p. 187). She also comments on women's pilgrimage, if possible "Mecca or Kerbelah will be her goal, though, if want of means put these shrines out of the question, she will perforce content herself with Meshed. Usually, when the place of worship is reached, the lady and her servants will settle down for a year, and she will visit the mosque daily … Her devotions are not entirely unmixed with pleasure, for a part of the mosque is screened off for women and here she will sit and chat with friends from her native city" (p. 193). Sykes was "quick-witted, cultured, vivacious, with plenty of genial sense, and a power to tell a good story" (Theakstone). In their review of her book, The New York Times describes her as "a plucky Englishwoman and one endowed with endurance", and her work as "happily written, giving many new and curious facts about Persian life". She followed this popular account with the history Persia and its People (1910) and articles including Persian family life in the Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society for 1914. Having established herself as a travel writer, Sykes spent six months touring western Canada in 1911. She did so on behalf of the Colonial Intelligence League for Educated Women to promote employment opportunities in the colonies. In her book, A Home-help in Canada she comments: "if I were obliged to earn my living, were proficient in some useful art and knew what I know now, I should not hesitate for a moment between the wide free life of Canada, and my probable lot in overcrowded England" (p. ix). Octavo. Original dark green cloth, spine lettered in gilt, gilt Persian Lion and Sun emblem on the front cover, edges uncut. With half-tone photographic frontispiece of the author, and 31 similar plates, folding map coloured in outline. W.H. Smith and Son's Subscription Library label on front pastedown. A touch rubbed with a few marks to cloth, front cover and inner hinges judiciously repaired, occasional foxing or staining, a few short marginal tears to folding map and occasional text leaves. A very good copy. Robinson, p. 59; Speake, p. 479; Sykes, A Home-Help in Canada, 1912; Theakstone, p. 408; The New York Times, 30 April, 1898; The Times, 28 April 1898.