Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's letters from the Ottoman Empire are not merely travel accounts; they are deliberate correctives to the European travel literature she found riddled with 'ignorance and confidence.' Writing to correspondents in England and Europe, she repeatedly contrasts her own access—gained through her status as the wife of the British ambassador—with the limitations of male travelers who 'never saw' the women they described and 'dare not even peep into' mosques. The letters combine sharp observation with self-deprecating humor, as when she recounts the disastrous results of applying balm of Mecca to her face, only to note that local women who use it have 'the loveliest bloom in the world.'

A Critical Eye on Travel Writers

Montagu explicitly positions her letters as a corrective to the 'absurdities' of standard Levantine voyages. She singles out 'that worthy author Dumont' as a purveyor of errors, and dismisses male travelers who, barred from women's quarters and mosques, nonetheless claim authority on Turkish customs. Her critique extends to the very structure of travel writing: she notes that these authors 'talk very wisely of the genius of the men, into whose company they are never admitted.' This meta-commentary, woven into personal correspondence, transforms the letters into a sustained argument about who gets to represent a culture and how. The preface—written by a woman who identifies herself only as 'A LADY'—reinforces this by asserting that 'whilst it is surfeited with Male travels, all in the same tone, and stuffed with the same trifles; a lady has the skill to strike out a new path.'

The Body as Evidence: Balm, Complexion, and Credulity

In a long letter about the balm of Mecca, Montagu uses her own body as a site of experiment and skepticism. She applies the balm expecting 'wonderful effect,' but wakes with a face 'swelled to a very extraordinary size, and all over as red as my lady H——'s.' The episode becomes a vehicle for questioning both European credulity about exotic remedies and local beliefs in love charms. She reports a Turkish lady's claim that 'no enchantments would have their effects upon me'—a statement Montagu laughs at, but which also underscores her position as an outsider immune to local magic. The passage balances empirical disappointment with cultural relativism: she cannot perceive improvement in her mirror, yet acknowledges that Turkish women who use the balm have 'the loveliest bloom in the world.' This refusal to dismiss local practices outright, even while mocking their supernatural justifications, typifies Montagu's nuanced approach.

Conversation as Method: Disputing with Turkish Women

Montagu's access to Ottoman women's society—denied to male travelers—allows her to report conversations that reveal both shared human behavior and cultural difference. She describes a 'lady who really talks very sensibly on any other subject' but who insists on the reality of love charms, citing 'several ridiculous marriages' as proof. Montagu counters with an English parallel: 'we were not without our ridiculous marriages; and ... we did not look upon it as any thing supernatural, when a man played the fool, for the sake of a woman.' The exchange highlights her method: rather than exoticizing Turkish beliefs, she domesticates them through comparison. Yet she also records the lady's 'learned air' and the claim that Montagu herself is exempt from enchantment—a detail that subtly reinforces the foreignness of the belief system. These dialogues, preserved in the letters, offer a rare glimpse of cross-cultural debate among women in the eighteenth century.

Readers approaching these letters should attend to Montagu's rhetorical strategies as much as her descriptions. She writes to specific correspondents—friends, family, literary figures—and tailors her tone accordingly, from playful to indignant. The letters are not a systematic ethnography but a series of situated arguments, often responding to questions or assumptions from her addressees. Noting the dates and recipients of each letter can clarify the evolving nature of her observations. The preface, written by a contemporary woman, frames the collection as a vindication of female travel writing; whether Montagu herself would have endorsed that framing remains an open question, given her own ambivalence about publication.