Nineteenth-century European women’s travelogues constitute valuable sources for examining Iran’s social history and gender relations, particularly because female travelers sometimes gained access to domestic spaces and women’s social environments. Lady Sheil’s Glimpses of Life and Manners in Persia (1856) provides a multilayered account of Iranian women during the early reign of Naser al-Din Shah Qajar. This study critically examines the representation of women’s identities, social agency, and informal power in Sheil’s travelogue through qualitative content analysis. Drawing on Stuart Hall’s theory of representation, Edward Said’s critique of Orientalism, and the concept of female agency within patriarchal structures, it investigates how women’s roles and social positions are constructed in the narrative. The findings reveal women’s participation in household management, economic affairs, social communication, and informal political networks. They also demonstrate that the andaruni, or private quarters of the household, could function as a space in which domestic relationships intersected with broader social and political influence. Although Sheil’s observations reflect Victorian cultural assumptions, her account complicates the stereotype of the uniformly passive and secluded Iranian woman. The study argues that women’s agency in Qajar Iran should be understood in relation to social position, economic resources, family relationships, and different ways of life.