Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

The Turkish Embassy Letters were written while Montagu traveled with her husband, Edward Wortley Montagu, who had been appointed Ambassador Extraordinary to the Court of Turkey. Edward Montagu was also a representative of the London-based Levant Company, which traded in this region for items such as tulips, coffee, and silk. Edward Montagu's double appointment (which might represent a conflict of interest today) was made at a time when the Ottoman Empire's influence on trade and the movement of goods was extremely powerful. The task of Edward Montagu's diplomatic appointment was, in part, to keep trade functioning smoothly. Unfortunately, he was unsuccessful in effecting a truce between the warring nations of Austria and Turkey, and he was quickly replaced. The Montagus left England in 1716, and returned in 1718.

The Turkish Embassy Letters chronicle the encounters of a curious mind with numerous aspects of a foreign culture in frank and witty language. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu wrote enthusiastically to her friend, Alexander Pope, about the beauties of Turkish poetry, and set herself the task of learning Turkish grammar so that she could translate poems. To other correspondents, she wrote that she was impressed by the liberties given to women by Turkish cultural institutions, such as the veils that rendered a woman incognita in the street (the better, she thought, to conduct secret love affairs). She was struck by the unpretentious behavior of women in the Turkish baths, which she compared to English coffeehouses because of the freedom of conversation they promoted.