I chose to go incognito, to avoid any disputes about ceremony, and went in a Turkish coach, only attended by my woman that held up my train, and the Greek lady who was interpretress. I was invited to dine with the Grand Vizier’s lady, and it was with a great deal of pleasure I prepared myself for an entertainment which was never given before to any Christian. This source is a part of the Women in the Early Modern World, 1500-1800 teaching module. Her commentaries serve to paint simultaneously a picture of European woman’s views of the world and those of their Turkish counterparts, as mediated by a contemporary woman. She wrote extensively on those differences, always remaining open-minded and conscious of the cultural differences that explained otherwise “weird” behavior. She was clearly intrigued by the differences between her own sensibilities-and ideas of propriety-and those of Ottoman ladies.

Lady Montagu’s letters demonstrate a keen interest in Turkish customs, particularly those relating to women. She is perhaps best known for her letters from Constantinople, which she wrote to various friends and family members while living abroad with her husband, Lord Edward Wortley Montagu, the British Ambassador to the Ottoman court from 1717 to 1719.

This edition includes a broad selection of related historical documents on Turkey, women in the Arab world, Islam, and 'Oriental' tales written in Europe.The following are excerpts from the letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762), a noted English essayist and one of the earliest advocates of women’s rights. But her status as a woman traveller is crucial to her distinctive perspective, and one can argue that her letters offer a feminist alternative to much of the orientalist writing of both the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Like many women who rebelled against gender conventions, Montagu was the target of vicious attacks from her contemporaries. These letters, addressed primarily to her sister and to Alexander Pope, became the basis for a highly crafted text that was not published until 1763. Despite discouragement from friends that feared for her safety, she 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.

In 1716, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's husband Edward Montagu was appointed British ambassador to the Sublime Porte of the Ottoman Empire.

Lady montagu turkish embassy letters