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Turkish Embassy Letters (selection)

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (née Pierrepont) was an English aristocrat and woman of letters. In 1716, she accompanied her husband to Vienna, and thence to Adrianople (Edirne) and Constantinople, where he took up his post as the new British ambassador. The couple remained there until 1718. Lady Mary told the story of their voyage in a series of private letters full of vivid descriptions and unconventional commentary. Their posthumous publication in 1763 presented to the public the first secular work written by a European woman about the Muslim Orient. They were praised by Voltaire, and the Scottish author Tobias Smollett opined that they were "never equaled by any letter-writer of any sex, age or nation".

This selection contains sixteen of Lady Mary's Turkish Embassy Letters, as they came to be known, addressed her sister, Lady Mar (letters 1-5, 8, 9, 13, and 16), to Lady Rich (letters 6, 12 and 14), and to Abate Conti (letters 7, 10, 11 and 15). (Summary by Kazbek & Wikipedia)