The Sheik

About this book

Forbidden love springs from the deserts of Algeria, where feisty, young Brit Diana Mayo has come seeking excitement. She no sooner takes off on her horseback riding trip and is captured by a mysterious and handsome sheik who renders her into submission. Diana frantically attempts to escape, to regain her independence, her life of aristocrat parties and wealthy bachelors, but finds herself seduced by Sheik Ahmed Ben Hassan’s power.A scandalous romance novel, The Sheik stunned England when it came out in 1921. The ultimate tale of a good girl yearning to be ravished by the Other, it draws criticism from politically-correct readers. Still, the classic bond of love and dominance continually captivates a large readership. E. M. Hull’s exotic work has launched romance writers’ careers as well as given Rudolph Valentino his most famous role as the sheik in the movie version of this extraordinary love story.

Themes & subjects

About the author

E. M. Hull

16 August 1880 – 11 February 1947

Edith Maude Henderson was born on 16 August 1880 in the Borough of Hampstead, London, England, UK, the daughter of Katie Thorne, of New Brunswick, Canada and James Henderson, a shipowner from Liverpool. As a child she traveled widely with her parents, even visiting Algeria—the setting of her novels. In 1899, she married Percy Winstanley Hull (b. 1869) in London and the couple moved to Derbyshire in the early 1900s. They had a daughter Cecil Winstanley Hull, who also wrote a book Six Weeks in Algeria (1930). She dabbled writing fiction in the late 1910s while her husband was away serving in World War I. The Sheik, her first effort, was first published in England in 1919 and quickly became …