Walter Thornbury: Turkish Life and Character. London 1860 First edition, in 8vo,complete in two volumes,modern brown not uniform library binding,ex libris with usual stamp, text clean and bright, overall in very good condition. Walter Thornbury was a prolific journalist and a friend of Charles Dickens. He was an aesthetic observer. He went to Constantinople with the specific goal of capturing the color and noise of the city before it was completely Westernized. Thornbury provides a detailed look at the policing and commerce of the city. He writes extensively on the Grand Bazaar, describing it not just as a market but as a psychological map of the multinational Ottoman world.Writing at the late 1850s, Thornbury captures the city in the uneasy peace following the Crimean War. He notes the increasing presence of European goods, the rise of the Pera district, and the slow disappearance of the traditional society.He offers a rare, nuanced view of the domestic life of the women status in the Levant, attempting to look past the Orientalist myths to the social reality of the time. A very interesting social account for the Levant