Turkish Embassy Letters

In 1716, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's husband Edward Montagu was appointed British ambassador to the Sublime Porte of the Ottoman Empire. Montagu accompanied her husband to Turkey and wrote an extraordinary series of letters that recorded her experiences as a traveller and her impressions of Ottoman culture and society. Her connections with poets such as Pope, Congreve and Addison and with Whig politicians through her father and husband provide a fascinating base for the correspondence.

Her letters have an immediacy and vivacity that remains as fresh as the mosaics on the ancient monuments she saw and the eastern gardens that gave her such delight