Elizabeth Montagu

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Standard Name: Montagu, Elizabeth
Birth Name: Elizabeth Robinson
Nickname: Fidget
Nickname: The Two Peas (with Sarah Scott)
Nickname: The Queen of the Blues
Married Name: Elizabeth Montagu
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.
Mezzotint of Elizabeth Montagu, published by John Raphael Smith in 1776 after a painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds. She is seen in profile, sitting in a large upholstered chair against a backdrop of drapery, a pillar, and an outdoor landscape. Her dress and petticoat are voluminous and heavily decorated, with ruffled sleeves and a bow at the neck. Her hair is brushed back under a small bonnet perched on top of her head and tied with a dark ribbon. Below the image is a coat of arms and italic writing: "Mrs. Mon

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Dedications Helen Maria Williams
HMW published with her name her six-canto poem Peru, on the topic of colonialism, specificallyEuropean-New World and Christian-pagan relationships, dedicated to Elizabeth Montagu .
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall.
57 (1784): 376
Dedications Hester Mulso Chapone
HMC published her anonymous Letters on the Improvement of the Mind, addressed to a Young Lady—her eldest niece—and dedicated to Elizabeth Montagu .
Gentleman’s Magazine. Various publishers.
43 (1773): 241
Myers, Sylvia Harcstark. The Bluestocking Circle: Women, Friendship, and the Life of the Mind in Eighteenth-Century England. Clarendon.
231
Dedications Hannah More
HM published Essays on Various Subjects, principally designed for young ladies, dedicated to Elizabeth Montagu .
Jones, Mary Gwladys. Hannah More. Cambridge University Press.
30 and n22
Feminist Companion Archive.
Dedications Frances Reynolds
FR privately printed her work of aesthetic theory, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Taste and of the Origin of our Ideas of Beauty, &c, in a limited edition of 250 copies, dedicated to...
Family and Intimate relationships Sarah Scott
Sarah Robinson (later SS ) first met Lady Barbara Montagu during a visit to Bath with her sister Elizabeth .
Rizzo, Betty, and Sarah Scott. “Introduction”. The History of Sir George Ellison, University Press of Kentucky, p. ix - xlv.
xiii
Family and Intimate relationships Sarah Scott
The fame of SS 's elder sister, Elizabeth , later eclipsed her own. They enjoyed a very close relationship while they were growing up. Their nickname the two Peas suggests how they were regarded as...
Family and Intimate relationships Frances Wright
FW 's mother, Camilla Campbell Wright , belonged to the British aristocracy. The bluestocking Elizabeth Robinson Montagu was her godmother and great-aunt.
Eckhardt, Celia Morris. Fanny Wright. Harvard University Press.
5
Family and Intimate relationships Catharine Macaulay
The celebrations also included ringing the church bells and presenting CM with a gold medal. One of the odes (published at Bath the same year) depicts her as triumphing over other, more conservative women writers:...
Family and Intimate relationships Elizabeth Postuma Simcoe
It was her mother's sister Margaret Spinckes, later Graves (a cultivated woman and a friend of Elizabeth Montagu ), who brought her up.
Fryer, Mary Beacock. Elizabeth Posthuma Simcoe, 1762-1850, A Biography. Dundurn Press.
10, 12, 16
Family and Intimate relationships Catharine Macaulay
At twenty-one, he was much younger than she was (though many exaggerated the age difference), and of a lower rank (a saddler's son, and at the time of their marriage a surgeon's mate). He was...
Family and Intimate relationships Hester Lynch Piozzi
Elizabeth Montagu , standing as godmother, tried to brace her by saying she would not have taken on this office for a boy.
Clifford, James L. Hester Lynch Piozzi (Mrs Thrale). Clarendon Press.
167
Harriet died of whooping-cough before she was five, in April 1783...
Family and Intimate relationships Hester Lynch Piozzi
Gabriel Piozzi came into Hester Thrale's life as music teacher of her eldest daughter. Two days before Henry Thrale's death a friend told her warningly, that Man is in Love with you.
Clifford, James L. Hester Lynch Piozzi (Mrs Thrale). Clarendon Press.
198
Probably by...
Family and Intimate relationships Laurence Sterne
He married, in 1741, Elizabeth Lumley , who was a cousin of Elizabeth Montagu .
Battestin, Martin C., editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 39. Vol. 2 vols., Gale Research.
473
Family and Intimate relationships Henrietta Maria Bowdler
HMB 's mother, a baronet's heiress and an intellectual, was born Elizabeth Stuart Cotton in about 1718. Four of her children grew up to be writers. She was an acquaintance of Elizabeth Montagu ,
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
under Elizabeth Stuart Bowdler
Family and Intimate relationships Elizabeth Gilding
Like her, he was a contributor to magazines: a juvenile work by him appeared in the Lady's Magazine in 1775, and he later contributed to the European and other magazines under the name of Fidelio...

Timeline

5 December 1738: The trial opened in which Theophilus Cibber...

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5 December 1738

The trial opened in which Theophilus Cibber sued William Sloper for adultery, claiming £5,000 damages: virtually the trial of Susannah Cibber . The jury found Sloper guilty but signified their opinion of Theophilus by awarding...

1 May 1749: Elizabeth Chudleigh created a sensation by...

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1 May 1749

Elizabeth Chudleigh created a sensation by appearing at a masquerade in the character of Iphigenia, in a dress so transparent that she was as good as naked.

22 March 1754: A group of Nobles, Clergy, Gentlemen, & Merchants...

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22 March 1754

A group of Nobles, Clergy, Gentlemen, & Merchants met to establish what became the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce.

10 August 1758: The Magdalen Hospital (for fallen women)...

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10 August 1758

The Magdalen Hospital (for fallen women) opened in Prescot Street, London, after a considerable campaign to influence public opinion.

31 May 1766: Coalmine-owner and bluestocking Elizabeth...

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31 May 1766

Coalmine-owner and bluestocking Elizabeth Montagu , who had already commented acidly on the narrowness of Newcastle streets, wrote of its people as little better than Savages.

July 1773: The Westminster Magazine printed, along with...

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July 1773

The Westminster Magazine printed, along with its account of Oxford University 's annual degree-giving, an article by L. P.On the Propriety of Bestowing Academical Honours on the Ladies.

April 1774: The Monthly Review, in a notice on Hannah...

Women writers item

April 1774

The Monthly Review, in a notice on Hannah More 's The Inflexible Captive, quoted some lines which transform the Muses from ancient Greece into the living female poets of Britain.

By April 1774: A Father's Legacy to His Daughters, by Dr...

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By April 1774

A Father's Legacy to His Daughters, by Dr John Gregory , was posthumously published.

28 November 1776: The otherwise unidentified Mrs H. Cartwright...

Women writers item

28 November 1776

The otherwise unidentified Mrs H. Cartwright wrote the dedication to Elizabeth Montagu of her first work, Letters on Female Education Addressed to a Married Lady, which appeared early the next year.

1777: Richard Samuel engraved his Nine Living Muses...

Women writers item

1777

Richard Samuel engraved his Nine Living Muses of Great Britain (or Portraits in the Character of the Muses in the Temple of Apollo) for Johnson's Ladies New and Polite Pocket Memorandum for 1778...

1785: Dialogues Concerning the Ladies, a celebration...

Women writers item

1785

Dialogues Concerning the Ladies, a celebration of famous women, was anonymously published; it borrows from Ballard 's Memoirs of Eminent Ladies.

By early October 1930: London publisher Gerald Howe issued a composite...

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By early October 1930

London publisher Gerald Howe issued a composite biography entitled Six Women of the World, which had previously made up six volumes in a Representative Women series, 1927-9.

Texts

Montagu, Elizabeth, and George, first Baron Lyttelton. “Dialogues XXVI, XXVII, XXVIII”. Dialogues of the Dead, Garland, 1970, pp. 291-20.
Climenson, Emily J., and Elizabeth Montagu. Elizabeth Montagu, The Queen of the Bluestockings. Her Correspondence from 1720 to 1761. John Murray, 1906.
Montagu, Elizabeth. Essay on Shakespear. J. Dodsley, 1769.
Blunt, Reginald, and Elizabeth Montagu. Mrs Montagu, "Queen of the Blues", Her Letters and Friendships from 1762 to 1800. Constable, 1923.
Montagu, Elizabeth. “MSS MO 1-6923”. Huntington Library Manuscripts.
Montagu, Elizabeth. The Letters of Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu. Editor Montagu, Matthew, T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1813.