A wonderfully eloquent account of this great city first published in 1877 and now translated by Stephen Parkin 

“Who would dare to describe Constantinople?” Edmondo de Amicis answered his own rhetorical question with a rich and vivid book about the city, published in 1877. It is, says the translator of this new edition Stephen Parkin, “one of the best accounts of the city ever written”. Umberto Eco (who has written the foreword) took his fellow countryman’s guide with him when he first visited Istanbul, and Orhan Pamuk has also praised it. After an eight-day voyage to the city, De Amicis was appalled when he awoke to find the view obscured by fog: “Curse it!” But the slowly clearing mist merely adds to the atmosphere. The sight of minarets “tinged with rosy light from the rising sun”, palaces lining the water’s edge, small harbours, lush gardens and exotic pavilions almost defied the author’s powers of description. But not quite, for De Amicis’s account of this great, even “monstrous”, city is wonderfully eloquent: as restless and busy as Constantinople itself, teeming with the sights, sounds and smells of one of the greatest and most diverse cities on Earth. 

Source: The Guardian