Step into the steam. First published in 1889, Rita's The Mystery of a Turkish Bath is a sensation novel like no other — a story of hidden identities, whispered secrets, and the fierce, tender devotion that can grow between women, set within the marble halls and scented vapours of a London bathhouse. Warm, atmospheric, and quietly subversive, it invites readers into a world of velvet lounges, cold plunges, and confidences exchanged in the dim light of the cooling room. Long little known outside specialist circles, the novel has been rediscovered as a pioneering work of queer Victorian literature, as gripping today as it was daring then. This edition presents the complete, unabridged original text, faithfully reproduced, with a new introduction situating the book in its historical and literary context and reader's notes illuminating the people, places, and customs of the Victorian Turkish bath. Part of The Founding Texts Library.