The Veiled Empress: An Unacademic Biography

243 pp. Top page ridge gilt. Includes eight color plates from paintings by Christina Morton. Aimée du Buc de Rivéry (4 December 1768 – ?)[1] was a French heiress who went missing at sea as a young woman. There is an unsubstantiated legend that she was captured by Barbary pirates, sold as a harem concubine, and was the same person as Naksîdil Sultan, a Valide Sultan (Queen Mother) of the Ottoman Empire; there is no evidence of this.[2]