Princess Salme, daughter of Sa'id ibn Sultan, ruler of Oman and Zanzibar, was born in Zanzibar on August 30, 1844. In 1866 she fled to Aden where she was baptized with the Christian name Emily and where she married the German merchant Rudolph Heinrich Ruete. In Hamburg three children were born. Her husband died in 1870, and after that she lived in several cities in Germany. In 1885 and again in 1888 she went to Zanzibar. Between 1889 and 1914 she lived in Jaffa and Beirut, and afterwards again in Germany. She died in Jena in 1924.
The present work contains a short biography of Princess Salme/Emily Ruete and of her son Rudolph Said-Ruete, a new English translation of her "Memoirs, and an English version of her other writings, unpublished so far: "Letters Home, "Sequels to the Memoirs and "Syrian Customs and Usages.