The Turkish Embassy Letters

Author: Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, Desai, Anita

Turkey

Published on 27 January 1994 by Little, Brown Book Group (Virago Press Ltd) in the United Kingdom as part of 'the Virago Modern Classics' series.

The critical and biographical introduction tells of Lady Wortley Montagu's travels through Europe to Turkey in 1716, where her husband had been appointed Ambassador. Her lively letters offer insights into the paradoxical freedoms conferred on Muslim women by the veil, the value of experimental work by Turkish doctors on inoculation, and the beauty of Arab poetry and culture. The ability to study another culture according to its own values and to see herself through the eyes of others makes Lady Mary one of the most fascinating of early travel writers and commentators