1. M. Epstein wrote the early history of the Levant Company in 1908, giving attention to details regarding laws, rules, and persons from the Company’s first decades (The Early History of the Levant Company, George Routledge & Sons Limited, London). The whole history of the Levant Company came into the scene in 1935, written by Alfred C. Wood (A History of the Levant Company, Oxford University Press, London). For a long time, these two works became the base and cornerstone dealing with the history of the Company and shaped all debates and discussions on the structure and laws of the Company and activities of English merchants. In 1974 M. Kütükoğlu (Osmanlıİngiliz İktisadi Münasebetleri,Türk Kültürünü Araştırma Enstitüsü, Ankara) combined Ottoman and British sources under the title of Ottoman-British Economic Relations. Wood and Kütükoğlu’s work covers more or less the same period while Epstein’s work and A.N. Kurat’s 1953 study (Türkİngiliz Münasebetlerinin Başlangıcı ve Gelişmesi, 1553-1610, TTK, Ankara) deal with the early years of Ottoman-British relations, in other words, the early years of the Levant Company.
2. H. G. Rosedale, Queen Elizabeth and the Levant Company, A Diplomatic and Literary Episode of the Establishment of our Trade with Turkey, Henry Frowde, Oxford University Press, London 1904.
3. Literature is abundant in terms of British Levant trade. For example, R. Davis, Aleppo and Devonshire Square: English Traders in the Levant in the Eighteenth Century, Macmillian, London, Melbourne and Toronto 1967; E. Frangakis-Syrett, The Commerce of Smyrna in the Eighteenth Century (1700–1820), Centre for Asia Minor Studies, Athens 1992; Christine Laidlaw, The British in the Levant, Trade and Perception of the Ottoman Empire in the Eighteenth Century, I.B. Tauris Publishers, London and New York 2010; D. Panzac, “International and Domestic Maritime Trade in the Ottoman Empire during the 18th century”, International Journal of Middle East Studies 24/2 (1992), pp. 189-206; Commerce et navigation dans l’empire ottoman au XVIIIe siècle, Isis, Istanbul 1996; D. Vlami, Trading with the Ottomans: The Levant Company in the Middle East, I.B. Tauris & Co., London and New York 2015; M. Talbot, British-Ottoman Relations, 1661-1807: Commerce and Diplomatic Practice in Eighteenth Century Istanbul,The Boydell Press, Woodbridge 2017. By focusing on inhabitants of Smyrna in late 18th and 19th centuries Marie-Carmen Smyrnelis analyzes how Muslims of Smyrna, non Muslim subjects and European merchants live in harmony and despite their ethnic and confessional differences and how they define their identity in her two books which depend on her Phd thesis. For her, though all these groups as Muslims, Greeks, Armenians, Europeans (French, British, Venetian, Dutch, Genoese...) divided into communities, they found the way of interaction by crossing religious, ethnic boundaries and also institutional limits, so they created une ville plurielle. She highlights “living together” in Smyrna. See Marie-Carmen Smyrnelis, Une société hors de soi, identités et relations sociales à Smyrne aux XIIIe et XIX siécles, editons Peeters, Paris 2005; Une Ville Ottomane Plurielle, Smyrna aux XVIIe et XIX siécles, Les éditions Isis, İstanbul 2006.
4. Sir James Porter, Observations on the Religion, Law, Government and Manners of the Turks, to which is added, The State of the Turkey Trade from Its Origin to the Present Time, 2nd edition, printed for J. Nourse, Bookseller to His Majesty, London 1771), v.I, p. 366. For Porter, 1739 was the beginning of the decay of British Levant trade.
5. See Paul Masson, Histoire du commerce français dans le Levant au XVIIIe siécle, Librairie Hachette, Paris 1911; J.-P. Filippini, L. Meignen, C. Roure, D. Sabatier and G. Stéphanidés (ed.), Dossiers sur le commerce français en Méditerranée orientale au XVIIIe siécle, Paris 1976); E. Eldem, French Trade in Istanbul in 18th century, Brill, Leiden 1999.