Wow, what a woman Lady Mary was, such intelligence and wit in her writing, a woman living a life way ahead of her time. In a time where anything intellectual was the domain of men, the self taught Mary had a literally talent that put most writers to shame. There had been travel books written in the past but they were by writers passing through a place only seeing what their guide showed them, so things were briefly described and whole places unseen. Lady Mary lived in these places, explored them thoroughly, finding those places that had been missed, she fully included herself in the culture, learning the language and earning the respect of the people…you can’t help but feel proud of how she represented England.

I don’t think you can not help but notice how important these letters were to society back in England, Lady Mary’s opening words on the letters are all about placating the impatience from her friends demanding to know where she is, what she has seen, who she has met and demands for her to send them stuff. Also included are Lady Mary’s demands to know more about what is going on back at home, her words are sharp and amusing, you can see that any conversation with her could be quite daunting. Once she starts the main body of the letter it becomes more like travel writing, she takes care to go beyond what is written in traditional travel books, being a woman she was able to get insights into places never written about before, bath houses, places, harems and the private residences of princesses. I found what she saw fascinating, the details on fashion were very vivid and easy to picture in my mind. A few comments would have got her in trouble these days but you can see that what she wrote was innocent.

At the end of the book there is a biography about Lady Mary written by another mighty female travel writer, Dervla Murphy, and this insight into the life of Lady Mary was very good. This extra information gives an added dimension to the letters, I had wondered why the husband didn’t get mentioned much, almost a background character that she just happened to be travelling with. Most importantly was finding out about her work with smallpox inoculations, she had to deal with the same craziness as those trying to push covid vaccinations, the abuse, the bizarre theories about God not wanting this, but she was a strong woman who held her ground and eventually it was accepted and because of this one woman 1000’s of lives were saved…before this book I had never heard of her, she most certainly deserves far more recognition than she gets.

A book of two halves, first the unique views of a woman travelling across in the 1700’s and second the insightful biography of that woman…two very good reasons for getting yourself a copy of this book to read.

Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2022/03/30/the-turkish-embassy-letters-by-mary-wortley-montagu/