Berenice and Bajazet by Alan Hollinghurst

Author:Alan Hollinghurst
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3, epub
ISBN: 9780571299096
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2012-05-04T04:30:00+00:00

First Preface (1672)

Although the subject of this tragedy does not yet appear in any printed history, it is none the less a true story. It is an incident which took place in the harem not more than thirty years ago.1 Count de Cézy was then ambassador to Constantinople. He was informed of all particulars concerning the death of Bajazet; and there are many people at court who remember having heard him recount them on his return to France. M. le Chevalier de Nantouillet is among those people, and it is to him that I am indebted for this history and even for the plan I formed to make it into a tragedy. For this reason I have been obliged to change various details; but since the changes are very slight I see no necessity to explain them to the reader. The main principle to which I held was to change nothing of the morals and customs of the nation; and I took care to suggest nothing which did not conform to the history of the Turks and to the new account of the Ottoman Empire, which has been translated from English. Above all I owe much to the advice of M. de la Haye,2 who was good enough to elucidate all the problems that I put to him.

1. In fact in 1635.

2. Successor to Cézy as ambassador.

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