The Turkish bath in fiction:
Trollope's short story The Turkish bath:
wood engraving by Joan Hassall
In Joan Hassall's wood engraving of The Editor (left) and Mr Molloy (right), from Anthony Trollope's short story The Turkish bath in the 1951 Folio Society edition of Mary Gresley and other stories, the portrait of the editor bears a remarkable (if somewhat romanticised) likeness to Trollope himself.
Indeed, the author was thoroughly familiar with The London Hammam at number 76 Jermyn Street, as is quite obvious to anyone reading the delightful description of the ritual of the bath in the first part of the story.
Even the plot seems to have had some actuality. Trollope, writing in his Autobiography, says: 'I do not think that there is a single incident in [An Editor's tales—the collection in which the story was republished] which could bring back to anyone concerned the memory of a past event. And yet there is not an incident in it which was not presented to my mind by the remembrance of some fact.'
This page first published 01 January 2023
Simon Lawrence for permission to use Joan Hassall's engravings
This page enlarges an image or adds to the information found below:
Trollope's Jermyn Street Turkish bath
Sexual activity in the Jermyn Street Hammam
Victorian Turkish Baths: their origin, development, and gradual decline
Comments and queries are most welcome and can be sent to:
malcolm@victorianturkishbath.org
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© Malcolm Shifrin, 1991-2023