On the Sultan’s Service: Halid Ziya Uşaklıgil’s Memoir of the Ottoman Palace, 1909-1912

Readers interested in the twilight of the Ottoman Empire, and by an insider’s tales of the workings of a royal household, will find much to admire in this memoir, translated and edited by Douglas Scott Brookes, the author of previous books on the Ottoman Empire. Uşaklıgil, the author of two well-received novels, supported the Young Turks in the coup of 1908. His sympathy with the Young Turks and his renown as a writer earned him an appointment as first secretary of the court chancery, where he oversaw the paperwork for managing the Dolmabahçe palace. After the Young Turks fell from power, Uşaklıgil returned to teaching and writing. In the last decade of his life, he penned this memoir of his time in the service of Sultan Mehmed V. Uşaklıgil brings a novelist’s eye to his tales of palace life, painting vivid portraits of state dinners, pageants and parades, court intrigue and the waning of imperial power.