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The Turkish Embassy Letters

  • Author
    • Mary Wortley Montagu
Format
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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
  • Published: Jan 27 1994
  • Pages: 240
  • 126 x 196mm
  • ISBN: 9781853816796
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Press Reviews

  • Anita Desai

    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
  • Isobel Grundy, University of Alberta

    What a treat to see this indispensable and versatile text again available . . . Her idiosyncratic, open-minded, proto-feminist responses to Islamic civilisation are more fascinating today than ever, and the context that the editors supply for them is simply the best yet
  • Suvir Paul, University of Pennsylvania

    A timely and compelling reminder of the reasons why we should pay attention to the writing of this remarkable woman. They have produced what will no doubt be the definitive teaching edition for years to come
  • Dervla Murphy

    One of the best narrative travel books ever written by an Englishwoman
  • Anita Desai
    Her letters have an immediacy and vivacity that remains as fresh as the mosiacs on the ancient monuments she saw and the eastern gardens that gave her such delight.