author
Edwin Pears
1835–1919
A British barrister and historian who spent about forty years in Constantinople, he wrote with the authority of someone who had seen the late Ottoman world up close. His books blend eyewitness experience, legal insight, and a lasting fascination with Byzantine and Turkish history.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Born in York on March 18, 1835, Sir Edwin Pears was educated privately and at the University of London, where he took first-class honours in Roman law and jurisprudence. He was called to the bar at the Middle Temple in 1870, and a few years later settled in Constantinople, the city that would shape both his legal career and his writing.
Pears lived there for roughly four decades, practicing in the consular courts and becoming a well-known observer of Ottoman politics and society. That long residence gave his books a strong sense of place and firsthand knowledge. He wrote on Turkey, Constantinople, and Byzantine history, and is especially remembered for works including Turkey and its People and Forty Years in Constantinople.
His writing appeals to readers who enjoy history told by someone close to the events, rather than at a great distance. Pears died on November 27, 1919, leaving behind books that still matter as vivid records of the Ottoman capital and its changing world.