Elizabeth Montagu

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EM , eighteenth-century Bluestocking leader, is known on the one hand as an informal letter-writer, and on the other hand for ambitious critical intervention in canonicity and cultural debates, with her critical study of Shakespeare and dialogues of the dead.
  • BirthName: Elizabeth Robinson
  • Nicknames: The Two Peas (with Sarah Scott)
    The name The Two Peas derived from the perception that EM and her sister Sarah were as like as two peas; literary historian Betty Rizzo says no one used this name after Sarah had smallpox.
    Myers, Sylvia Harcstark. The Bluestocking Circle: Women, Friendship, and the Life of the Mind in Eighteenth-Century England. Clarendon, 1990.
    33
    Rizzo, Betty. Companions Without Vows: Relationships Among Eighteenth-Century British Women. University of Georgia Press, 1994.
    296
    ; Fidget
    Myers suggests this name was coined by EM 's friend Margaret Bentinck, Duchess of Portland.
    Myers, Sylvia Harcstark. The Bluestocking Circle: Women, Friendship, and the Life of the Mind in Eighteenth-Century England. Clarendon, 1990.
    26
    ; The Queen of the Blues
    Feminist Companion Archive.
    This name reflects EM 's wealth, power, and position in relation to the other Bluestockings.

  • Married: Montagu

Milestones

By 2 October 1718

Elizabeth Robinson (later EM ) was born, the elder daughter in a family of seven (surviving) brothers and two sisters.
Until recently EM 's year of birth was mistakenly supposed to be 1720.
Rizzo, Betty. Companions Without Vows: Relationships Among Eighteenth-Century British Women. University of Georgia Press, 1994.
351
Rizzo, Betty. Companions Without Vows: Relationships Among Eighteenth-Century British Women. University of Georgia Press, 1994.
351

April 1769

In a counterblast to Voltaire , EM published, anonymously, An Essay on Shakespear.
Blunt, Reginald, and Elizabeth Montagu. Mrs Montagu, "Queen of the Blues", Her Letters and Friendships from 1762 to 1800. Constable, 1923, 2 vols.
1: 217-18

25 August 1800

EM died at Montagu House in Portman Square, London.
Myers, Sylvia Harcstark. The Bluestocking Circle: Women, Friendship, and the Life of the Mind in Eighteenth-Century England. Clarendon, 1990.
269
Blunt, Reginald, and Elizabeth Montagu. Mrs Montagu, "Queen of the Blues", Her Letters and Friendships from 1762 to 1800. Constable, 1923, 2 vols.
2: 346

Biography

Birth and Family

By 2 October 1718

Elizabeth Robinson (later EM ) was born, the elder daughter in a family of seven (surviving) brothers and two sisters.
Until recently EM 's year of birth was mistakenly supposed to be 1720.
Rizzo, Betty. Companions Without Vows: Relationships Among Eighteenth-Century British Women. University of Georgia Press, 1994.
351
Rizzo, Betty. Companions Without Vows: Relationships Among Eighteenth-Century British Women. University of Georgia Press, 1994.
351