For the first time, Peter Clark brings together all the short stories by Marmaduke Pickthall on the theme of the Middle East in one volume.

The lands in which Pickthall’s stories are set to have, since his time, undergone changes that have been violent and unprecedented. Wars, revolutions, displacement and emigration, voluntary and forced, have been a lot of Syrians, Palestinians, Egyptians and Turks since Pickthall’s time. These people are the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the men and women among whom Pickthall travelled, whom he loved and whose lives he has reconstructed for our enlightenment and delight.