Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

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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.
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.
3: 173, 183
Photo of a full-length painting of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu by Jonathan Richardson recording her time in Turkey. She stands outdoors, with famous buildings of Constantinople (Istanbul) visible beyond. She is dressed in gold: a caftan whose deep V-neck and open skirt reveal a lace shift and long harem drawers. She also wears a gold cap which she calls a talpock on her dark hair, a blue cloak edged with ermine, pearl drop earrings, and pointed slippers. The presence of the young Black boy behind her is start

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Anthologization Martha Fowke
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.
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.
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.
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 ).
OCLC WorldCat. http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/content/worldcat/. Accessed 1999.
Clark, Emily Frederick. Poems: Consisting Principally of Ballads. F. C. and J. Rivington.
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 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...
Education Helen Dunmore
While HD was growing up she read a lot of Russian fiction and poetry.
McCrum, Robert. “The Siege is a novel for now”. The Observer.
The poems of Osip Mandelstam were her talismans.
McCrum, Robert. “The Siege is a novel for now”. The Observer.
The books that she read, she says, made me, as a person...
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 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...
Family and Intimate relationships W. H. Auden
Nicholas Jenkins of Stanford University formerly maintained on his website at http://www.stanford.edu/~njenkins/ a section called W. H. Auden. Family Ghosts, designed to show how Auden's family, despite his claims to ordinariness, sprang from a...
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...
Family and Intimate relationships Judith Cowper Madan
Soon afterwards Lady Mary Wortley Montagu , appropriating her voice in Miss Cooper to —, makes the unmarried Judith Cowper express a tormented love for Lysander, who in this poem is uncaring and...
Family and Intimate relationships Anne Irwin
Nearly a decade after his death Lady Mary Wortley Montagu addressed to the widow an poetic argument against infidelity so jaunty as to suggest she did not think him a husband worth mourning.
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. Essays and Poems and Simplicity, A Comedy. Editors Halsband, Robert and Isobel Grundy, Oxford University Press.
257-8

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.

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.

1 March 1711: Joseph Addison began to publish the Spec...

Writing climate item

1 March 1711

Joseph Addison began to publish the Spectator.

14 April 1713: Joseph Addison's influential classical tragedy,...

Writing climate item

14 April 1713

Joseph Addison 's influential classical tragedy, Cato, opened.

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.

19 May 1720: A New Miscellany, edited by Anthony Hammond,...

Women writers item

19 May 1720

A New Miscellany, edited by Anthony Hammond , included work by Pope , Prior , William Bond , George Sewell , Susanna Centlivre , Delarivier Manley , Eliza Haywood , Martha Fowke , and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu .

30 June 1724: The House of Lords began hearing William...

Building item

30 June 1724

The House of Lords began hearing William Yonge 's case for divorcing his wife.

February 1726: Richard Savage published his Miscellaneous...

Writing climate item

February 1726

Richard Savage published his Miscellaneous Poems and Translations: dedicated to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu , it included work by Eliza Haywood , Martha Fowke , and Miranda Hill .

27 June 1726: The leading colliery owners on Tyneside set...

Building item

27 June 1726

The leading colliery owners on Tyneside set up a new cartel, the Combination or Grand Alliance, to replace an one dissolved in 1715.

16 February 1728: Henry Fielding's first play, Love in Several...

Writing climate item

16 February 1728

Henry Fielding 's first play, Love in Several Masques, opened on stage.

25 June 1731: George Lillo's bourgeois tragedy The London...

Writing climate item

25 June 1731

George Lillo 's bourgeois tragedyThe London Merchant; or, The True History of George Barnwell had its debut at Drury Lane , London.

Valentine's Day 1732: Henry Fielding's The Modern Husband opened;...

Building item

Valentine's Day 1732

Henry Fielding 's The Modern Husband opened; it was published the same month.

12 March 1733: George Lyttelton published a poem entitled...

Building item

12 March 1733

George Lyttelton published a poem entitled Advice to a Lady.

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.

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. T. Becket and P. A. De Hondt, 1763.
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M— W—y M—e. A. Homer and P. Milton, 1764.
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M— W—y M—e. T. Becket and P. A. De Hondt, 1767.
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. 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.
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. The Dean’s Provocation for Writing the Lady’s Dressing-Room. A Poem. Printed for T. Cooper, 1734.
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. The Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Editor James Archibald Stuart-Wortley-Mackenzie, first Baron Wharncliffe, Richard Bentley, 1836.
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. The Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Editor Thomas, W. Moy, Henry G. Bohn, 1861.
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. The Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Editor Thomas, W. Moy, Cambridge University Press, 2010, 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).
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, Printed for J. Williams, 1768.
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.
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, and John, Baron Hervey. Verses Address’d to the Imitator of the First Satire of the Second Book of Horace. James Roberts.