Mary Wortley Montagu, Turkish Embassy Letters

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Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s

The Turkish Embassy Letters

(1763) conjoins travel writing, memoir, and satire. In keeping with the great works of fictional travel writing of her day (

Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver’s Travels

), Montagu took her actual impressions of Turkish culture and added a thin veneer of fiction, much of it “reflected in tranquility”, to borrow Wordsworth’s phrase. For unlike Defoe or Swift, Montagu actually traveled to Turkey in 1716 to accompany her husband, who had been newly appointed

Ambassador Extraordinary

to the Court of Turkey. A prolific letter-writer, Montagu documented every stage of her trip, from a brief stay in Vienna to the torturous journey through Hungary, and finally, experiencing the sights and sounds of Constantinople itself. She addressed these…

2243 words

Citation: Grasso, Joshua. "Turkish Embassy Letters". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 02 November 2017 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=8486, accessed 28 March 2024.]

8486 Turkish Embassy Letters 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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