BEAUTIFUL SLAVE IN A TURKISH HAREM
Her name was Lalla.
She was the loveliest girl that Sultan Mahomet had ever seen. But Circassian slave girl is deaf and dumb.
All to the better, the Sultan thinks, and he adores her like the most delicate flower in an exotic garden. He treats her well, this Lalla, and she grows in health and beauty.
But there is a secret about this girl. A secret that can bring tragedy to the old city of Stamboul by the glittery Bosphorus Sea.
For there is a reason this girl cannot speak or hear -- and that is her lost love, Aphiz of Cardassia, and their violent parting.
When Aphiz saves the life of the Sultan, he is brought to court and he sees Lalla -- who he knows as Komel.
Then destiny careens wildly forward. . . .
Author Biography
Maturin Murray Ballou (1820 - 1895) was a writer and publisher in 19th-century Boston, Massachusetts. He co-founded Gleason's Pictorial, was the first editor of the Boston Daily Globe and wrote numerous travel books and works of popular fiction. Starting around 1838, Ballou wrote for the Olive Branch, a weekly paper published in Boston. In addition to writing, he worked various jobs for the Boston Post Office and the Boston Custom House. From 1842 through 1844, Ballou and Isaac H. Wright published the weekly newspaper Bay State Democrat. Writing under the pseudonym Lieutenant Murray, Ballou authored popular novels which were published by Frederick Gleason starting around 1845, such as The Gipsey and the Robbers of Naples: a Story of Love and Pride. He also wrote stories for The Flag of Our Union. In 1851, Ballou and Frederick Gleason established the weekly paper Gleason's Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion. It was inspired by The Illustrated London News. The first issue appeared on May 3, 1851 and declared: "The object of this paper is to present, in the most elegant and available form, a weekly literary melange of notable events of the day. Its columns are devoted to original tales, sketches and poems, by the best American authors and the cream of the domestic and foreign news; the whole well spiced with wit and humor." In November 1854, Ballou bought out Gleason and changed the paper's name to Ballou's Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion.
