Details of Pierre Loti's life exist in abundance, for he kept a daily diary (journal intime) from childhood through to 1918 and much of his writing was autobiographical. Some of these details will be of interest to the reader and they can be best presented below in a year-by-year format. There follow observations on the man himself and finally more specifically on his journey to Persia and the resulting account entitled, Vers Ispahan, and on his visit to Muscat, related in his short essay ‘En passant a Mascate’, both of which are translated in this book.

Loti's Life 1850 – 14 January, the birth of Louis-Marie-Julien Viaud (later Pierre Loti) at 141 rue St-Pierre in Rochefort, in present-day Charente-Maritime, the third child of Theodore Viaud and Nadine Texier, a middle-class Protestant family. 1850-66 – He had a lonely childhood and he lacked friends of his own age. He was much spoiled by two grandmothers and an elderly aunt who lived with the family and doted on by his mother. He entered the local college in 1862.

1866-67 – In the autumn of 1866, Julien left Rochefort for Paris in order to take the necessary academic courses at the Lycee Napoleon for entry into the Navy. Successfully passing his examinations in July 1867, he entered the naval school in Brest, Brittany, in the following October.

1869-70 – His naval duties took him to the Mediterranean, North Africa, across the Atlantic to Brazil, the USA and Canada. In June 1870, his father Theodore Viaud died, leaving the family in straightened financial circumstances. He had been accused of embezzling funds from the mairie in Rochefort where he worked. After a time in prison, it seems he was exonerated, but the financial damage to the family was already considerable.

1871 – Julien returned to France from the Baltic and the North Sea where he served during the Franco-Prussian war.

1872 – Easter Island and Tahiti. It was in the latter that he acquired the name ‘Loti’, a Tahitian flower, and henceforth assumed the name Pierre Loti. 1873-74 – Dakar, Senegal.

1876-77 – Loti spent several months in Constantinople, his first of many stays in the city.