The Turkish Embassy Letters (1763)

Teresa Heffernan is Associate Professor of English at St. Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Daniel O'Quinn is Professor of English and Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph.

Acknowledgements
Introduction
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu: A Brief Chronology of Her Life and Times
A Note on the Text

The Turkish Embassy Letters

Appendix A: Front Matter for the 1763 Edition

Appendix B: Further Correspondence and Verse Relating to Turkey



Lady Mary Wortley Montagu to Mrs. Frances Hewet (1717)
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu to Edward Wortley Montagu (1718)
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, The Genuine Copy of a Letter Written from Constantinople by an English Lady, Who WasLately in Turkey (1719)
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, “Verses, Written January 1718 in the Chiosk of the British Palace at Pera Overlooking the City of Constantinople, Dec. 26, 1718”
Alexander Pope’s Correspondence with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1716-17)
Letters from Edward Wortley Montagu to Joseph Addison (1717)

Appendix C: Reception



The Annual Register (1763)
Monthly Review (May 1763)
From Baron de Tott, “Preliminary Discourse,” Memoirs of Baron de Tott (1786)
From Lady Elizabeth Craven, Memoirs of the Margravine of Anspach (1826)
From Fatma Aliye, “Madam Montagu,” Hanımlara Mahsus Gazete (1895)
From Ahmet Refik, “Introduction” from Sark Mektuplari [Letters from the East] (1933)

Appendix D: The Smallpox Inoculation Controversy



Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, “Saturday. The Small Pox. Flavia,” from Six Town Eclogues. With Some Other Poems (1747)
[Lady Mary Wortley Montagu], “A Plain Account of the Inoculating of the Small Pox by a Turkey Merchant,” Flying Post (13 September 1722)
Anonymous, A New Essay on the Small-Pox with a View to Preserve This Nation from the Infection of That Distemper (1725)
From Voltaire, Letters Concerning the English Nation (1733)
Horace Walpole to Lady Elizabeth Craven (2 January 1787)
Celebrating Lady Mary’s Struggle to Introduce Smallpox Vaccination to England, This Monument in Lichfield Cathedral, Staffordshire, Was Erected in 1789

Appendix E: Turkish Women and the Harem



From Richard Knolles, The Generalle Historie of the Turkes (1603)
From George Sandys, A Relation of a Journey Begun An: Dom: 1610 (1615)
From Robert Withers (Ottaviano Bon), A Description of the Grand Signor’s Seraglio or Turkish Emperour’s Court (1650)
From Sir Paul Rycaut, The Present State of the Ottoman Empire (1668)
From Aaron Hill, A Full and Just Account of the Present State of the Ottoman Empire in All Its Branches (1709)

Appendix F: Eastern Tales and Orientalist Fictions



From Miguel de Cervantes, The History and Adventures of the Renowned Don Quixote (1755)
From Antoine Galland, Arabian Nights Entertainments: Consisting of One Thousand and One Stories, Told by TheSultaness of the Indies (1713)
From Joseph Addison, “The Vision of Mirzah,” The Spectator (1 September 1711)
From Penelope Aubin, The Strange Adventures of the Count de Vinevil and His Family (1721)
From Daniel Defoe, The Fortunate Mistress (1724)
From Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (1848))

Appendix G: Descriptions of Ottoman Governance and Society



Letter from Safiye Sultana, Consort of Murad III and Mother of Mehmed III, to Queen Elizabeth (1594)
From Evliya Çelebi, Narrative of Travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa in the Seventeenth Century (1834)
From Sir Paul Rycaut, The Present State of the Ottoman Empire (1668)
From Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws (1750)
From Sir James Porter, Observations on the Religion, Law, Government, and Manners of the Turks (1771)
From Baron François de Tott, “Preliminary Discourse,” Memoirs of Baron de Tott (1786)

Appendix H: Accounts of Islam



From Evliya Çelebi, Narrative of Travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa in the Seventeenth Century (1834)
From Sir Paul Rycaut, The Present State of the Ottoman Empire (1668)
From George Sale, “Preliminary Discourse” to The Koran, Commonly Called The Alcoran of Mohammed (1734)
From David Hume, “The Natural History of Religion” in Four Dissertations (1757)
From Sir James Porter, Observations on the Religion, Law, Government, and Manners of the Turks (1771)
From Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1791)

Appendix I: Illustrations



Jean-Baptiste Vanmour, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu with Her Son, Edward Wortley Montagu, and Attendants (c. 1717)
Jonathan Richardson (attr. to), Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in Turkish Dress with Page (c. 1725)
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Le Bain turc (1862)
Rayhana, Daughter of Ka’b ibn Malik, Neglected by Her Husband, from the Life of the Prophet (Siyar-i nabi, Turkish and Arabic text) (1594-95)

Works Cited and Recommended Reading