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
Friends, Associates Winifred Maxwell, Countess of Nithsdale
WMCN 's early and close relationship with her sister-in-law Mary, Countess of Traquair , née Maxwell, suffered vicissitudes over the years through her poverty and her husband's shameless requests for money. In 1718 the Traquairs...
Textual Features Anna Williams
Besides AW 's own work, the volume included several pieces by Johnson, The Three Warnings by Hester Thrale , and a poem beginning Friendship, peculiar gift of heaven, a copy of which had been...
Reception Marie-Catherine de Villedieu
This was one of three publications by MCV which Lady Mary Wortley Montagu had in her library (besides a sequel to another Villedieu work).
“List of Lady Mary Wortley’s books packed up to be sent abroad”. Wharncliffe Muniments, Sheffield, p. M / 135 / 3.
Literary responses Marie-Catherine de Villedieu
In her copy of this text (an edition published in 1721 in twelve volumes),Lady Mary Wortley Montagu wrote: plus delicat que Crebillon [evidently the younger of this name, famous for erotic fiction], plus amusant...
Family and Intimate relationships Susan Tweedsmuir
Through her mother ST was descended from Lady Mary Wortley Montagu . She was happy to claim Lady Mary as an ancestress, but did not pay her particularly close attention: she was mistaken in 1952...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Flora Tristan
One chapter, entitled English Women, criticizes British social systems, and details the consequences women suffer because of the indissolubility of marriage.
Tristan, Flora. Flora Tristan’s London Journal, 1840. Translators Palmer, Dennis and Giselle Pincetl, Charles River Books.
198
FT shows particular sympathy for Rosina Bulwer Lytton , whom she depicts...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Melesina Trench
About the first twenty pages are occupied by MT 's early reminiscences, probably written not long after her first husband's death: she frankly recorded her emotional disturbance over that event.
Trench, Melesina. The Remains of the Late Mrs. Richard Trench. Editor Trench, Richard Chenevix, Parker and Bourn.
18
Later pages mix letters...
Textual Features Elizabeth Sophia Tomlins
Though Theresa writes most of the letters in the book, the opening one, as often in women's epistolary novels at this date, is an exchange between men. Tomlins, however, does not attempt to capture a...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Elizabeth Tollet
The volume opens with translations from classical authors, and includes two psalms translated into Latin.
Londry, Michael, and Elizabeth Tollet. The Poems of Elizabeth Tollet. Oxford University.
51
ET also translated from the sixteenth-century Latin of George Buchanan . One poem, Ariette, was listed as set...
Family and Intimate relationships Ann Thicknesse
Philip Thicknesse was a somewhat shady character, one of the greatest self-publicists of the eighteenth century.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
under Philip Thicknesse
After travelling the world in various capacities he had eloped with an heiress in 1742...
Intertextuality and Influence Edith Templeton
The epigraph alerts the reader to expect an unusually disillusioned example of the voyage-to-the-island-of-love genre (previously written by Aphra Behn and the future Lady Mary Wortley Montagu ). This novel begins, as did the two...
Friends, Associates Jonathan Swift
Swift helped and befriended a number of women writers. He was a patron of Mary Barber , Constantia Grierson , an unidentified Mrs Sican , Mary Davys , and Laetitia Pilkington , a colleague of...
Textual Production Lady Louisa Stuart
At seventy-nine, LLS first became a deliberately published author, with her Biographical Anecdotes of Lady M.W. Montagu (also known as Introductory Anecdotes) for her grandmother 's Letters and Works.
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. “Preface”. The Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, edited by W. Moy Thomas, Swan Sonnenschein, p. iii - viii.
iii
Rubenstein, Jill. “Women’s Biography as a Family Affair: Lady Louisa Stuart’s ’Biographical Anecdotes’ of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu”. Prose Studies, Vol.
9
, No. 1, pp. 3-21.
17
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
Family and Intimate relationships Lady Louisa Stuart
It gave LLS some trouble as a child that her grandmother was Lady Mary Wortley Montagu : I am sure I heartily hated her name. Whatever I wanted to learn, everybody was up in arms...

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.