The Turkish Embassy Letters book cover
18th-Century Turkish Insights

The Turkish Embassy Letters

by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Anita Desai

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Paperback ISBN: 9781853816796 27 Jan 1994 196 x 132 x 16 (mm) 170g

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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.