The Sheik

Publisher Marketing: Are you coming in to watch the dancing, Lady Conway? I most decidedly am not. I thoroughly disapprove of the expedition of which this dance is the inauguration. I consider that even by contemplating such a tour alone into the desert with no chaperon or attendant of her own sex, with only native camel drivers and servants, Diana Mayo is behaving with a recklessness and impropriety that is calculated to cast a slur not only on her own reputation, but also on the prestige of her country. I blush to think of it. We English cannot be too careful of our behavior abroad. No opportunity is slight enough for our continental neighbours to cast stones, and this opportunity is very far from being slight. It is the maddest piece of unprincipled folly I have ever heard of. Oh, come, Lady Conway It's not quite so bad as all that. It is certainly unconventional and-er-probably not quite wise, but remember Miss Mayo's unusual upbringing-- Review Citations: Kirkus Reviews 05/15/2001 pg. 702 (EAN 9780812217636, Paperback) Contributor Bio:  Hull, E M E. M. Hull was the pseudonym of Edith Maude Winstanley Hull, nee Henderson (b. 16 August 1880 - d. 11 February 1947) was a British writer of eight romance novels from 1919 to 1939, best known for being the author of the novel The Sheik which became an international best seller in 1921. This novel is credited with starting the hugely popular "desert-romance" genre. Hull followed The Sheik with subsequent novels The Shadow of the East, The Desert Healer, and The Sons of the Sheik.