The Sheik

The Sheik (1919) is a romance novel by English author E.M. Hull. Written while the author’s husband was serving in the Great War, The Sheik launched Hull’s career as a bestselling author of romance fiction, selling millions of copies following the release of a 1921 film of the same name. Part of a tradition of Orientalist fiction, The Sheik has proven as controversial as it has been popular, and serves now as a reminder of the ways in which British subjects imagined themselves in relation to the colonial world.

In an Algerian city, the young Diana Mayo prepares for a month-long journey through the desert. Despite warnings from family and friends, she departs with her Arab guide. Surrounded by endless swaths of sand, Diana is soon kidnapped by Sheik Ahmed Ben Hassan, who has bribed her guide to abandon her. Taken to his camp, Diana is repeatedly raped over a period of weeks, and soon gives up hope of ever escaping. After a thwarted attempt at stealing one of the Sheik’s horses, she slowly begins to fall in love with Ben Hassan, but realizes she must hide her feelings from a man who views her solely as an object of desire. As months go by, Diana learns the tragic truth behind the Sheik’s hatred of the English, and the two begin to grow close. When she is kidnapped by a rival, however, Ben Hassan must risk his life in order to save her. The Sheik is a bestselling romance novel by a master of English popular fiction.

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E.M. Hull (1880-1947) was an English romance novelist. Born in London, Hull was the daughter of a Canadian mother and a father from New York City. As a girl, Hull visited Algeria with her family, providing the setting for many of her successful novels, including The Sheikh (1919), an international bestseller. Notoriously reclusive, Hull settled in Derbyshire with her husband, a civil engineer and pig farmer, with whom she had a daughter, Cecil Winstanley Hull. The Sheikh served as source material for a popular 1921 silent film of the same name by Paramount, leading to the sale of millions of copies of Hull’s novel.