Funeral Games: Ludic Events, Imperial Violence, Authorial Encounters

Despite being strongly discouraged by her friends and relatives who feared for her safety, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu set out from London with her husband in August 1716 on a diplomatic mission that took them through Europe to Constantinople. Hoping to stay for a minimum of five years, Lady Mary was the first English woman to write about her travels in Ottoman lands and her observations serve as one of the most important records of intercultural exchange between Christian Europe and the Ottoman Empire. As British Ambassador to the Sublime Porte, Edward Wortley Montagu was charged with the daunting task