Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
-
Standard Name: Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley
Birth Name: Mary Pierrepont
Styled: Lady Mary Pierrepont
Nickname: Flavia
Nickname: Sappho
Married Name: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
Indexed Name: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
Pseudonym: Strephon
Pseudonym: Clarinda
Pseudonym: A Turkey Merchant
LMWM
, eighteenth-century woman of letters, identified herself as a writer, a sister of the quill
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. The Complete Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Editor Halsband, Robert, Clarendon Press, 1965–1967, 3 vols.
3: 173
haunted by the daemon of poetry. She wrote poems, essays, letters (including the letters from Europe and Turkey which she later recast as a highly successful travel book), fiction (including adult fairy-tale, oriental tale, and full-length mock romance), satire, a diary, a play, a political periodical, and a history of her own times. Not all of these survive. Best known in her lifetime for her poetry, she is today still best known for her letters.
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. The Complete Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Editor Halsband, Robert, Clarendon Press, 1965–1967, 3 vols.
Five poems by MF
(as Mrs. Fowke) appeared in good poetic company (with Pope
, Prior
, Susanna Centlivre
, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
, and others) in Anthony Hammond
's A New Miscellany, published on 19 May 1720.
Birth
Henry Fielding
He was the elder brother of Sarah Fielding
, and second cousin of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
(their grandfathers were brothers).
Birth
Lady Louisa Stuart
At her christening, on 6 September 1757, Lady Mary Coke
stood proxy for Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
as godmother.
Stuart, Lady Louisa. Letters of Lady Louisa Stuart to Miss Louisa Clinton. Editor Home, Hon. James Archibald, D. Douglas, 1901–1903, 2 vols.
1: 260
death
William Congreve
His hitherto discreet partner the young Duchess of Marlboroughmade herself conspicuous by her public mourning.
Harris, Frances. A Passion for Government: The life of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough. Clarendon, 1991.
276
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
wrote a poem to the memory of Congreve, who, she says, In pain could...
death
Henry Fielding
His cousin Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
wrote that HF
and Sir Richard Steele
were both so form'd for Happiness, it is a pity they were not Immortal.
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. The Complete Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Editor Halsband, Robert, Clarendon Press, 1965–1967, 3 vols.
3: 88
Dedications
Emily Frederick Clark
EFC
published by subscription a volume of Poems: Consisting Principally of Ballads, dedicated to Lady Lonsdale
(eldest grand-daughter of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
).
Clark, Emily Frederick. Poems: Consisting Principally of Ballads. F. C. and J. Rivington, 1810.
prelims
Dedications
L. E. L.
It was dedicated to Lady Emmeline Stuart Wortley
, descendant of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
. A modern reprint appeared in 1992.
Education
George Gordon sixth Baron Byron
Byron's voracious reading in childhood was probably fostered by an unhappy emotional life from which imaginative escape was welcome. His favourite books were then the Arabian Nights and travel books about the East, especially that...
Education
Jane Gardam
She was twelve when she overheard her English teacher telling her parents that she was clever, well ahead of the standard for her age. By this time she was attending Saltburn High School
for Girls...
Education
Helen Dunmore
While HD
was growing up she read a lot of Russian fiction and poetry.
qtd. in
McCrum, Robert. “The Siege is a novel for now”. The Observer, 10 June 2001.
McCrum, Robert. “The Siege is a novel for now”. The Observer, 10 June 2001.
The books that she read, she says, made me, as a person...
Education
Elizabeth Grant
EG
refers to a number of texts that influenced her as a child. She learned to read by the age of three, taught by loving aunts, and remembered in particular Puss in Boots, Bluebeard...
Family and Intimate relationships
Mary Eleanor Bowes Countess of Strathmore
Her mother, born Mary Gilbert
, from a gentry family in Hertfordshire, was her father's second wife, married more than twenty years after the death of his first. (That first wife, the beautiful, scholarly, fourteen-year-old...
AO
accepted a proposal of marriage from a nobleman, Lord Herbert Stuart
; but she later broke off the engagement.
Stuart, the second son of the fourth Earl (later the first Marquess) of Bute, was...
Family and Intimate relationships
Margaret Calderwood
MC
's brother, another James Steuart
, was educated at school and university and on the Grand Tour. He married Lady Frances Wemyss
in 1743, and two years later, because she was ill with smallpox...
Timeline
1656: Abraham Cowley published Poems; this volume,...
Writing climate item
1656
Abraham Cowley
published Poems; this volume, which included his Pindaric Odes and Miscellanies, confirmed his stature as the leading poet of the day.
Drabble, Margaret, editor. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 5th ed., Oxford University Press, 1985.
1686: Madame de Maintenon founded, in a nunnery...
Building item
1686
Madame de Maintenon
founded, in a nunnery at St Cyr near Paris, a school for impoverished noble girls. Closed with other convents at the Revolution, the institution re-opened in 1808 as a school for...
1 December 1699: John Pomfret published The Choice, a poem...
Writing climate item
1 December 1699
John Pomfret
published The Choice, a poem in praise of the good life; among many other poems sharing this title, or that of The Wish, Pomfret's became a long-lived favourite.
Foxon, David F. English Verse 1701-1750. Cambridge University Press, 1975, 2 vols.
Messenger, Ann. Pastoral Tradition and the Female Talent: Studies in Augustan Poetry. AMS Press, 2001.
58, 60, 67, 79, 86-7
1 March 1711: Joseph Addison began to publish the Spec...
Drabble, Margaret, editor. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 5th ed., Oxford University Press, 1985.
14 April 1713: Joseph Addison's influential classical tragedy,...
Writing climate item
14 April 1713
Joseph Addison
's influential classical tragedy, Cato, opened.
The London Stage 1660-1800. Southern Illinois University Press, 1960–1968, 5 vols.
2.1: 299
13 June 1716: After the early death of Mary Monck, her...
Women writers item
13 June 1716
After the early death of Mary Monck
, her grieving father, Robert, Viscount Molesworth
, published Marinda: Poems and Translations upon Several Occasions, which contains writing by her and others.
Foxon, David F. English Verse 1701-1750. Cambridge University Press, 1975, 2 vols.
19 May 1720: A New Miscellany, edited by Anthony Hammond,...
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. Essays and Poems and Simplicity, A Comedy. Editors Halsband, Robert and Isobel Grundy, Oxford University Press, 1993.
264
November 1739: The anonymous, probably female Sophia published...
Women writers item
November 1739
The anonymous, probably female Sophia
published a pamphlet entitled Woman not Inferior to Man.
Gentleman’s Magazine. Various publishers.
9 (1739): 608
Texts
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, and Laetitia Pilkington. “Annotation”. The Memoirs of Mrs. Laetitia Pilkington.
Stuart, Lady Louisa, and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. “Biographical Anecdotes of Lady M. W. Montagu and Supplement to the Anecdotes”. Essays and Poems and Simplicity A Comedy, edited by Robert Halsband et al., Clarendon Press, 1993, pp. 6-61.
Stuart, Lady Louisa, and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. “Biographical Anecdotes of Lady M.W. Montagu”. The Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, edited by James Archibald Stuart-Wortley-Mackenzie, first Baron Wharncliffe and James Archibald Stuart-Wortley-Mackenzie, first Baron Wharncliffe, R. Bentley, 1837, pp. 1: 1 - 105.
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. Court Poems. Edmund Curll, 1716.
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. Essays and Poems and Simplicity, A Comedy. Editors Halsband, Robert and Isobel Grundy, Oxford University Press, 1993.
Murphy, Dervla et al. “Introduction”. Embassy to Constantinople, Century, 1988, pp. 7-37.
Desai, Anita, and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. “Introduction”. Turkish Embassy Letters, edited by Malcolm Jack and Malcolm Jack, University of Georgia Press, 1993, p. vii - xxxvii.
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M— W—y M—e. 1st ed., T. Becket and P. A. De Hondt, 1763, 3 vols.
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M— W—y M—e. Pirated with spurious additions, A. Homer and P. Milton, 1764, 2 vols.
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M— W—y M—e. New, T. Becket and P. A. De Hondt, 1767, 4 vols.
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. Original Letters from the Right Honourable Lady Mary Wortley Montague, to Sir James & Lady Frances Steuart; also Memoirs and Anecdotes of those distinguished persons. Printed by Robert Donaldson, 1818.
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. “Preface”. The Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, edited by W. Moy Thomas, Swan Sonnenschein, 1893, p. iii - viii.
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. Romance Writings. Editor Grundy, Isobel, Clarendon Press, 1996.
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. Selected Letters. Editor Grundy, Isobel, Penguin, 1997.
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. Six Town Eclogues. Printed for M. Cooper, 1747.
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. The Complete Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Editor Halsband, Robert, Clarendon Press, 1967, 3 vols.
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. The Dean’s Provocation for Writing the Lady’s Dressing-Room. A Poem. Printed for T. Cooper, 1734, 89 ll., folio.
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. The Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Editor Wharncliffe, James Archibald Stuart-Wortley-Mackenzie, first Baron, Richard Bentley, 1836, 3 vols.
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. The Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Editor Thomas, W. Moy, 3rd ed., Henry G. Bohn, 1861, 2 vols.
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. The Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Editor Thomas, W. Moy, Cambridge University Press, 2010, 2 vols., http://www.cambridge.org/series/sSeries.asp?code=CLOR.
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. The Nonsense of Common-Sense. James Roberts (a pamphlet-seller rather than a publisher), 9 issues.
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. The Nonsense of Common-Sense, 1737-1738. Editor Halsband, Robert, Northwestern University Press, 1947.
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. The Poetical Works of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e. Editor Reed, Isaac, 1st ed., Printed for J. Williams, 1768, 1 vol.
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. The Verse of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. A Critical Edition. Editor Grundy, Isobel, Oxford University, 1971.
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. The Works of the Right Honourable Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Editor Dallaway, James, Richard Phillips, 1803, 5 vols.