Abstract: For writers of the first half of the twentieth century, travel in the East did not hold the prestige it once had: whether in Constantinople or Cairo, the great dream of escape had been democratised, and hordes of tourists had replaced solitary travellers. Narrative prose of the interwar years thus reflects the decline of the traditional picturesque linked to the East and the birth of the archetype of the blasé traveller, the latest transformation of the decadent dandy.
