Even though Hull’s name is forever wed to The Sheik, the woman herself remains something of an enigma. Firstly, given that there is very little critical or biographical information on Hull and her travels in Algeria, this article aims to piece together available evidence on her journeys. Secondly, with the foundations that I lay here I hope also to begin to unravel the connection between Hull’s fictional and non-fictional writing and to comment on its impact on the desert romance craze of the 1920s. Having explored how travel trends to the Sahara in the 1920s were informed by movements in popular culture, I go on to examine how Hull constructs the desert as a backdrop to her own story into which she writes herself as leading lady. (128)
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We know from Camping in the Sahara that her acquaintance with Algeria, the setting for many of her novels, stemmed back to her childhood; she states this fact explicitly. She also implies that she and her daughter had visited Algeria together on previous occasions as well. Furthermore, it is apparent that they had employed the same Algerian staff on previous expeditions and were friendly with other local dignitaries. Absurd though it may be to think of the author living out the delusion of being the romance heroine she pens, there is, as I examine below, an unequivocal connection between Hull’s fictional output and her travelogue. (130)
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