Emmeline Lott was the author of "The English Governess in Egypt: Harem Life in Egypt and Constantinople" (1855), an account of her employment as governess to the young son of Isma'il Pasha

Isma'il Pasha

Isma'il Pasha , known as Ismail the Magnificent , was the Khedive of Egypt and Sudan from 1863 to 1879, when he was removed at the behest of the United Kingdom...

, Viceroy of Egypt. Lott believed that her position as a "humble individual" and member of the household provided her with a more authentic perspective than that of aristocratic visitors such as Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

The Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was an English aristocrat and writer. Montagu is today chiefly remembered for her letters, particularly her letters from Turkey, as wife to the British ambassador, which have been described by Billie Melman as “the very first example of a secular work by a woman about...

, for whom the harem was tidied up for public viewing. Lott's tone towards Egyptian women is often contemptuous - she claims that far from being Oriental beauties of European fantasy, they are "hideous and hag-like". Lott believed herself to be superior to Egyptians by virtue of her race; it was a shock to find that as a governess, she was treated as a servant and a social inferior.