Only the “Outward Appearance” of a Harem ? Reading the Memoirs of an Arabian Princess as Material Text

“Mrs. Ruete, the Berlin-based sister of the Sultan of Zanzibar, will soon publish a two-volume work entitled ‘Memoirs of an Arabian Princess’, which is said to contain both personal experiences and particularly impressive descriptions of Mohammedan [sic] culture in East Africa” states a notice in a German illustrated magazine of April 1886, an example of the publicity preceding the publication of Emily Ruete’s autobiography Memoiren einer arabischen Prinzessin (Memoirs of an Arabian Princess)...