All of Frances's aunts married into titled families.
- Lady Frances Pierrepont b. 8 Jun 1690, d. 4 Mar 1761 She married John Erskine from Clackmannanshire in Scotland the Earl of March
- Lady Mary Pierrepont b. 26 May 1689, d. 1762 Lady Mary Pierrepont was baptised on 26 May 1689 at St. Paul's Church, Covent Gardens, London, England.
- Lady Evelyn Pierrepont b. 19 Sep 1691, d. 26 Jun 1727 She married John 1st Earl of Gower and Viscount Leveson-Gower
- William Pierrepont, Earl of Kingston b. 21 Oct 1692, d. c Jul 1713 m Rachel Baynton
Edward Wortley-Montagu was the son of Sidney Montagu
and nephew of Sarah Rogers, cousin to Jemima and Edward Montagu
Sir Sidney Montagu (died 25 February 1644) was an English politician who
sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1593 and 1642. He
supported the Royalist cause in the English Civil War. Montagu was the
son of Sir Edward Montagu, who was a judge, of Boughton,
Northamptonshire and grandson of Sir Edward Montagu.
He matriculated at
Christ's College, Cambridge in December 1588 and was admitted at Middle
Temple on 11 May 1593. In 1593, Montagu was elected Member of
Parliament for Brackley.
He was elected MP for Malmesbury in 1601 and
for Wells in 1614. He became Master of Requests to King Charles I and was knighted on 28 July 1616. In November 1640, Montagu was
elected MP for Huntingdonshire in the Long Parliament.
He was
expelled and committed to the Tower of London in 1642.
Montagu was of
Hinchingbrooke House, Huntingdonshire. He married Paulina Pepys,
daughter of John Pepys, of Cottenham, Cambridgeshire and sister of
Richard Pepys and Thomas Pepys, grandfather of Samuel Pepys.
His son
Edward was created Earl of Sandwich. His brothers included Edward
Montagu, 1st Baron Montagu, Sir Walter Montagu, Henry Montagu, 1st Earl
of Manchester, Sir Charles Montagu and James Montagu, Bishop of
Winchester.
Mary was a friend of Elizabeth Montagu, and became part of her "inner circle"
It is her daughter Mary that would fit as the beneficiary of Jemima Medows' will
Mary
(1713-43), became a Maid of Honour to Queen Caroline at the Court of George II.
Mrs Eliza Haywood cast her in the role of Arilla in “The Secret History of the
present Intrigues of the Court of Carimania”. In real life she was celebrated
by Pope “for her prudence” and Mrs Hayward was added to the pantheon of
dullness in The Dunciad Variorum (book II, 149 et seq).
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (15 May 1689 – 21 August 1762) was an English aristocrat and writer. Lady Mary is today chiefly remembered for her letters, particularly her letters from Turkey, as wife to the British ambassador, which have been described by Billie Melman as “the very first example of a secular work by a woman about the Muslim Orient”.
Later years
Alexander
Pope declared his love to Lady Mary, who responded with laughter.
Ottoman smallpox inoculation
Important works
Literary place
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (15 May 1689 – 21 August 1762) was an English aristocrat and writer. Lady Mary is today chiefly remembered for her letters, particularly her letters from Turkey, as wife to the British ambassador, which have been described by Billie Melman as “the very first example of a secular work by a woman about the Muslim Orient”.
As a pioneer of modern medicine, she was
the first European who insisted on inoculation of her children of small doses
of smallpox long before programmes of preventative medicine began, based on her
own observational evidence of Turkish milkmaids similarly inoculated who
recovered from the disease. Her mother had three more children before dying in
1692.
The children were raised by their
Pierrepont grandmother until Mary was 9. Lady Mary was then passed to the care
of her father upon her grandmother's death. She began her
education in her father's home. Family holdings were extensive,
including Thoresby Hall and Holme Pierrepont Hall in
Nottinghamshire, and a house in West Dean in Wiltshire.
She used the library in her father’s mansion, Thoresby Hall in the Dukeries of Nottinghamshire, to “steal” her education, teaching herself Latin.
Thoresby Hall had one of the finest private libraries in England, which she loved, but it was lost when the building burned in 1744. By about fourteen she had written two albums filled with poetry, a brief epistolary novel, and a prose-and-verse romance modeled after Aphra Behn's Voyage to the Isle of Love (1684).She also apparently corresponded with two bishops, Thomas Tenison and Gilbert Burnet, who supplemented the instructions of a governess she despised. Lady Mary would later describe her governess' teachings as "the worst in the world".
She used the library in her father’s mansion, Thoresby Hall in the Dukeries of Nottinghamshire, to “steal” her education, teaching herself Latin.
Thoresby Hall had one of the finest private libraries in England, which she loved, but it was lost when the building burned in 1744. By about fourteen she had written two albums filled with poetry, a brief epistolary novel, and a prose-and-verse romance modeled after Aphra Behn's Voyage to the Isle of Love (1684).She also apparently corresponded with two bishops, Thomas Tenison and Gilbert Burnet, who supplemented the instructions of a governess she despised. Lady Mary would later describe her governess' teachings as "the worst in the world".
Marriage and embassy to Ottoman Empire
By 1710 Lady Mary had two possible suitors
to choose from: Edward Wortley Montagu and Clotworthy Skeffington. Mary's
father, now Marquess of Dorchester, rejected Wortley Montagu as a prospect
because he refused to entail his estate on a possible heir
Her father pressured her to marry Clotworthy Skeffington, heir to an Irish peerage. Although Lady Mary had fallen in love with another unidentified man, in order to avoid marriage to Skeffington, she eloped with Wortley. They were married on 23 August 1712 in Salisbury.
Her father pressured her to marry Clotworthy Skeffington, heir to an Irish peerage. Although Lady Mary had fallen in love with another unidentified man, in order to avoid marriage to Skeffington, she eloped with Wortley. They were married on 23 August 1712 in Salisbury.
The early years of Lady Mary Wortley
Montagu's married life were spent in seclusion in the country. She had a
son, Edward Wortley Montagu the younger, on 16 May 1713, in London. Her
husband became Member of Parliament for Westminster in 1715, and shortly
afterwards was made a Lord Commissioner of the Treasury.
When Lady Mary joined him in London, her wit and beauty soon made her a prominent figure at court. She was among the society of George I and the Prince of Wales, and counted amongst her friends Molly Skerritt, Lady Walpole, John, Lord Hervey, Mary Astell, Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, Alexander Pope, John Gay, and Abbé Antonio Conti.
When Lady Mary joined him in London, her wit and beauty soon made her a prominent figure at court. She was among the society of George I and the Prince of Wales, and counted amongst her friends Molly Skerritt, Lady Walpole, John, Lord Hervey, Mary Astell, Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, Alexander Pope, John Gay, and Abbé Antonio Conti.
In December 1715, Lady Mary
contracted smallpox.
She survived, but while she was ill someone circulated the satirical “court eclogues” she had been writing. One of the poems was read as an attack on Caroline, Princess of Wales, in spite of the fact that the "attack" was voiced by a character who was herself heavily satirized.
Disgraced and unable to return to court, Lady Mary left London in August 1716 to accompany her husband on his embassy to Istanbul.
She survived, but while she was ill someone circulated the satirical “court eclogues” she had been writing. One of the poems was read as an attack on Caroline, Princess of Wales, in spite of the fact that the "attack" was voiced by a character who was herself heavily satirized.
Disgraced and unable to return to court, Lady Mary left London in August 1716 to accompany her husband on his embassy to Istanbul.
Early in 1716, Edward Wortley Montagu was
appointed Ambassador at Istanbul. Lady Mary accompanied him
to Vienna, and thence to Adrianople and Istanbul. He was
recalled in 1717, but they remained at Istanbul until 1718.
She had a daughter, who would grow up to be Mary, Countess of Bute, on 19 January 1718 in Istanbul. After an unsuccessful delegation between Austria and Ottoman empires, they returned to England.
She had a daughter, who would grow up to be Mary, Countess of Bute, on 19 January 1718 in Istanbul. After an unsuccessful delegation between Austria and Ottoman empires, they returned to England.
The story of this voyage and of her
observations of Eastern life is told in Letters from Turkey, a
series of lively letters full of graphic descriptions; Letters is
often credited as being an inspiration for subsequent female traveller/writers,
as well as for much Orientalist art. During her visit she was
sincerely charmed by the beauty and hospitality of the Ottoman women she
encountered, and she recorded her experiences in a Turkish bath with
a keen eye for detail.
While in Turkey, she also recorded a particularly amusing incident in which a group of Turkish women, horrified by the sight of the corset she was wearing, exclaimed that "the husbands in England were much worse than in the East, for [they] tied up their wives in little boxes, the shape of their bodies".
Lady Mary wrote that nowhere else were women as free as they were in the Ottoman Empire.
(Things have changed a bit since Mary was there)
While in Turkey, she also recorded a particularly amusing incident in which a group of Turkish women, horrified by the sight of the corset she was wearing, exclaimed that "the husbands in England were much worse than in the East, for [they] tied up their wives in little boxes, the shape of their bodies".
Lady Mary wrote that nowhere else were women as free as they were in the Ottoman Empire.
(Things have changed a bit since Mary was there)
Lady Mary returned to the West with
knowledge of the Ottoman practice of inoculation against smallpox, known
as variolation. In the 1790s, Edward Jenner developed a safer
method, vaccination.
In 1727 her husband inherited Wortley Hall, near Barnsley, Yorkshire, and commissioned a major remodelling of the house in 1742.
In 1727 her husband inherited Wortley Hall, near Barnsley, Yorkshire, and commissioned a major remodelling of the house in 1742.
Later years
Before starting for the East she had
met Alexander Pope, and during her absence he wrote her a series of
extravagant letters, which appear to have been chiefly exercises in the art of
writing gallant epistles. While Pope may have been fascinated by her wit and
elegance, Lady Mary's replies to his letters reveal that she was not equally
smitten. Very few letters passed between them after Lady
Mary's return, and various reasons have been suggested for the subsequent
estrangement and violent quarrel.
The last of the Istanbul letters to Pope purports to have been written from Dover on 1 November 1718. It contains a parody on Pope's Epitaph on the Lovers Struck by Lightning. The manuscript collection of these letters was passed round a considerable circle, and Pope may have been offended at the circulation of this piece of satire.
Jealousy of her friendship with Lord Hervey has also been alleged, but Lady Louisa Stuart says Pope had made Lady Mary a declaration of love, which she had received with an outburst of laughter. In any case Lady Mary always professed complete innocence of all cause of offence in public. She is alluded to in the Dunciad in a passage to which Pope affixed one of his insulting notes. A Pop upon Pope was generally thought to be her work, and Pope thought she was part author of One Epistle to Mr A. Pope (1730).
The last of the Istanbul letters to Pope purports to have been written from Dover on 1 November 1718. It contains a parody on Pope's Epitaph on the Lovers Struck by Lightning. The manuscript collection of these letters was passed round a considerable circle, and Pope may have been offended at the circulation of this piece of satire.
Jealousy of her friendship with Lord Hervey has also been alleged, but Lady Louisa Stuart says Pope had made Lady Mary a declaration of love, which she had received with an outburst of laughter. In any case Lady Mary always professed complete innocence of all cause of offence in public. She is alluded to in the Dunciad in a passage to which Pope affixed one of his insulting notes. A Pop upon Pope was generally thought to be her work, and Pope thought she was part author of One Epistle to Mr A. Pope (1730).
Pope attacked her again and again, but
with especial virulence in a gross couplet in the Imitation of the First
Satire of the Second Book of Horace, as Sappho. Verses
addressed to an Imitator of Horace by a Lady (1733), a scurrilous
reply to these attacks, is generally attributed to the joint efforts of Lady
Mary and her sworn ally, Lord Hervey.
She had a romantic correspondence with a Frenchman named Rémond, who addressed to her a series of excessively gallant letters before ever seeing her. She invested money for him in South Sea stock at his desire and, as was expressly stated, at his own risk. The value fell to half the price, and he tried to extort the original sum as a debt by a threat of exposing the correspondence to her husband.
She seems to have been really alarmed, not at the imputation of gallantry, but lest her husband should discover the extent of her own speculations. This disposes of the second half of Pope's line "Who starves a sister, or forswears a debt" (Epilogue to the Satires, 113), and the first charge is quite devoid of foundation.
She did in fact try to rescue her favourite sister, the countess of Mar, who was mentally deranged, from the custody of her brother-in-law, Lord Grange, who had treated his own wife with notorious cruelty, and the slander originated with him.
She had a romantic correspondence with a Frenchman named Rémond, who addressed to her a series of excessively gallant letters before ever seeing her. She invested money for him in South Sea stock at his desire and, as was expressly stated, at his own risk. The value fell to half the price, and he tried to extort the original sum as a debt by a threat of exposing the correspondence to her husband.
She seems to have been really alarmed, not at the imputation of gallantry, but lest her husband should discover the extent of her own speculations. This disposes of the second half of Pope's line "Who starves a sister, or forswears a debt" (Epilogue to the Satires, 113), and the first charge is quite devoid of foundation.
She did in fact try to rescue her favourite sister, the countess of Mar, who was mentally deranged, from the custody of her brother-in-law, Lord Grange, who had treated his own wife with notorious cruelty, and the slander originated with him.
In 1739 she left her husband and went
abroad, and although they continued to write to each other in affectionate and
respectful terms, they never met again. Edward worked away from home, leaving
Mary to raise their children, and she eventually divorced him.
She exchanged many love letters with Francesco Algarotti, Count Algarotti, competing with an equally smitten John Hervey for the Count's affections. She never remarried.
She exchanged many love letters with Francesco Algarotti, Count Algarotti, competing with an equally smitten John Hervey for the Count's affections. She never remarried.
Lady Montagu in Turkish dress by Jean-Étienne Liotard, ca. 1756, Palace
on the Water in Warsaw
At Florence in 1740 she
visited Horace Walpole, who cherished a great spite against her, and
exaggerated her eccentricities into a revolting slovenliness (see Letters,
ed. Cunningham, i. 59). As Lady Mary was then in her sixty-third year, the
scandalous interpretation put on the matter by Horace Walpole may safely be
discarded.
She lived at Avignon, at Brescia, at Gottolengo and at Lovere on the Lago d'Iseo. She was disfigured by a painful skin disease, (smallpox), and her sufferings were so acute that she hints at the possibility of madness. She was struck with a terrible fit of sickness while visiting the countess Palazzo and her son, and perhaps her mental condition made restraint necessary.
She lived at Avignon, at Brescia, at Gottolengo and at Lovere on the Lago d'Iseo. She was disfigured by a painful skin disease, (smallpox), and her sufferings were so acute that she hints at the possibility of madness. She was struck with a terrible fit of sickness while visiting the countess Palazzo and her son, and perhaps her mental condition made restraint necessary.
Her ex-husband spent his last years in
hoarding money, and at his death in 1761 is said to have been a millionaire.
His extreme parsimony is satirized in Pope's Imitations of Horace (2nd
satire of the 2nd book) in the portrait of Avidieu and his wife.
Lady Mary had problems with both her
children. Her daughter eloped with a suitor Mary disapproved of, while her son
ran away from school repeatedly. After his father’s death, he contested a will
in Mary’s name without her knowledge.
Her daughter, whose husband, was
now Prime Minister, begged her to return to England. She came to London,
and died in the year of her return, on 21 August 1762.
Ottoman smallpox inoculation
She defied convention most memorably with
her pioneering of a smallpox inoculation, a course of action unparalleled in
medical advance up to that point. Lady Mary's own brother
had died of smallpox and her own famous beauty had been marred by a bout with
the disease in 1715.
In 1717, she went to live in Turkey with her husband, the British ambassador to that country, and stayed for two years. In the Ottoman Empire, she visited the women in their segregated zenanas, learning Turkish, making friends and learning about Turkish customs. There she witnessed the practice of inoculation against smallpox—variolation—which she called engrafting, and wrote home about it.
Variolation used live smallpox virus in the liquid taken from a smallpox blister in a mild case of the disease and carried in a nutshell. Lady Mary was eager to spare her children, and had her son inoculated while in Turkey. On her return to London, she enthusiastically promoted the procedure, but encountered a great deal of resistance from the medical establishment, because it was an "Oriental" process
In 1717, she went to live in Turkey with her husband, the British ambassador to that country, and stayed for two years. In the Ottoman Empire, she visited the women in their segregated zenanas, learning Turkish, making friends and learning about Turkish customs. There she witnessed the practice of inoculation against smallpox—variolation—which she called engrafting, and wrote home about it.
Variolation used live smallpox virus in the liquid taken from a smallpox blister in a mild case of the disease and carried in a nutshell. Lady Mary was eager to spare her children, and had her son inoculated while in Turkey. On her return to London, she enthusiastically promoted the procedure, but encountered a great deal of resistance from the medical establishment, because it was an "Oriental" process
Emanuel Timoni, a Greek physician who also
attended the Wortley Montagues, had also described the procedure a few years
earlier. Dr. Timoni first described this procedure in the Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society of London in
1714. James Pylarini described it again in the Transactions in 1716.
They called it variolation (varus is Latin for pimple) or
inoculation (inoculare means to graft).
In 1721, after a smallpox epidemic struck
England, she had her three-year-old daughter inoculated by Charles
Maitland, a physician who had been at the embassy in Turkey, and publicized the
event. She persuaded Princess Caroline to test the treatment. Seven prisoners
awaiting execution were offered the chance to undergo variolation instead of
execution: they all survived and were released.
Then six orphan children were inoculated: they all survived. In 1722 King George I allowed Maitland to inoculate two of his grandchildren, children of the Princess. The children recovered.
Then six orphan children were inoculated: they all survived. In 1722 King George I allowed Maitland to inoculate two of his grandchildren, children of the Princess. The children recovered.
However, in another household, six
servants became ill with smallpox after a child was inoculated. Some clergymen
then announced that trying to prevent the illness was against God's will. Some
physicians warned that inoculation might spread the disease. Nevertheless,
inoculation became known as a way to prevent smallpox.
In fact, using live virus did carry a risk of infection. About 3% of those inoculated developed smallpox and died. Others spent weeks recovering. However, that was preferable to catching smallpox in the wild, with its mortality rate of 20–40% and survivors left scarred and sometimes blind.
In fact, using live virus did carry a risk of infection. About 3% of those inoculated developed smallpox and died. Others spent weeks recovering. However, that was preferable to catching smallpox in the wild, with its mortality rate of 20–40% and survivors left scarred and sometimes blind.
In response to the fear of inoculation,
Lady Mary wrote an anonymous article describing inoculation as it was practised
in Turkey. Inoculation gained general acceptance. In 1754 she was praised for
bringing the practice to Britain.
In later years, Edward Jenner, who
was 13 years old when Lady Mary died, developed the much safer technique
of vaccination using cowpox instead of smallpox. As vaccination
gained acceptance, variolation gradually fell out of favour.
Important works
A number of Lady Mary's poems were printed
in her lifetime, either without or with her permission or connivance: in
newspapers, in miscellanies, and independently.
Her poetry was included in Anthony
Hammond’s “New Miscellany of Original Poems, Translations and Imitations, by
the most Eminent Hands” (1720). Verses Address'd to the Imitator of Horace, The
Reasons that Induced Dr Swift to Write a Poem call'd the ‘Lady's Dressing
Room’, and the Answer to the Foregoing Elegy. London Magazine printed a number
of her poems.
In 1737 and 1738 she published anonymously
a political periodical called the Nonsense of Common-Sense,
supporting the Robert Walpole government (the title was a reference
to a journal of the liberal opposition entitled Common Sense).
She wrote Six Town Eclogues, with some other Poems (1747). She was included in Dodsley's Collection of Poems. She wrote notable letters describing her travels through Europe; these appeared after her death in three volumes from Becket and De Hondt. During the twentieth century Lady Mary's letters were edited separately from her essays, poems, and play, and from her longer fictions.
She wrote Six Town Eclogues, with some other Poems (1747). She was included in Dodsley's Collection of Poems. She wrote notable letters describing her travels through Europe; these appeared after her death in three volumes from Becket and De Hondt. During the twentieth century Lady Mary's letters were edited separately from her essays, poems, and play, and from her longer fictions.
She wrote a series of poems about
society's unjust treatment of women. She had notable correspondence with Anne
Wortley and wrote courting letters to her future husband Edward Wortley
Montagu, as well as love letters to Francesco Algarotti. She wrote letters
berating the vagaries of fashionable people to her sister.
Literary place
Montagu's poetry circulated widely, in
manuscript, among members of her own social circle. She seems to have avoided
publication in print in order to avoid the personal attacks that inevitably
followed. However, her letters from Turkey were clearly intended for print, she
revised them extensively and gave a transcript to the Rev. Benjamin Sowden in
Rotterdam in 1761 so that he could publish them.
Montagu's Turkish letters were to prove an
inspiration to later generations of European women travellers to the Orient. In
particular, Montagu staked a claim to the particular authority of women's
writing, due to their ability to access private homes and female-only
spaces where men were not permitted. The title of her published letters
refers to "Sources that Have Been Inaccessible to Other Travellers".
The letters themselves frequently draw attention to the fact that they present a different (and, Montagu asserts, more accurate) description than that provided by previous (male) travellers: "You will perhaps be surpriz'd at an Account so different from what you have been entertaind with by the common Voyage-writers who are very fond of speaking of what they don't know."
Montagu provides an intimate description of the women's bathhouse, in which she derides male descriptions of the bathhouse as a site for unnatural sexual practices, instead insisting that it was “the Women’s coffee house, where all the news of the Town is told, Scandal invented, etc”.
(the women today are not allowed into the coffee houses, they have to meet in their own homes and courtyards)
However, Montagu's detailed descriptions of nude Oriental beauties provided inspiration for male artists such as Ingres, who restored the explicitly erotic content that Montagu had denied. In general, Montagu consistently derides the quality of European travel literature of the 18th century as nothing more than "trite observations…superficial…[of] boys who only remember the best wine or the prettyest women."
The letters themselves frequently draw attention to the fact that they present a different (and, Montagu asserts, more accurate) description than that provided by previous (male) travellers: "You will perhaps be surpriz'd at an Account so different from what you have been entertaind with by the common Voyage-writers who are very fond of speaking of what they don't know."
Montagu provides an intimate description of the women's bathhouse, in which she derides male descriptions of the bathhouse as a site for unnatural sexual practices, instead insisting that it was “the Women’s coffee house, where all the news of the Town is told, Scandal invented, etc”.
(the women today are not allowed into the coffee houses, they have to meet in their own homes and courtyards)
However, Montagu's detailed descriptions of nude Oriental beauties provided inspiration for male artists such as Ingres, who restored the explicitly erotic content that Montagu had denied. In general, Montagu consistently derides the quality of European travel literature of the 18th century as nothing more than "trite observations…superficial…[of] boys who only remember the best wine or the prettyest women."
Montagu's Turkish letters were frequently
cited by imperial women travellers, more than a century after her journey. Such
writers cited Montagu's assertion that women travellers could gain an intimate
view of Turkish life that was not available to their male counterparts.
However, they also added corrections or elaborations to her observations. Julia Pardoe, in describing her own visit to a bathhouse, wrote "I should be unjust if I did not declare that I saw none of that unnecessary and wanton exposure described by Lady Mary Montagu. Either the fair Ambassadress was present at a peculiar ceremony, or the Turkish ladies have become more delicate and fastidious in the ideas of propriety."
Emmeline Lott, who wrote a book about her experience working as a governess for the son of Ishamel Pasha, claimed that Montagu's aristocratic rank meant that she had seen only the most attractive elements of Oriental life: "…her handsome train, Lady Ambassadress as she was, swept but across the splendid carpeted floors of these noble Saloons of Audience, all of which had been, as is invariably the custom, well “swept and garnished” for her reception."
However, they also added corrections or elaborations to her observations. Julia Pardoe, in describing her own visit to a bathhouse, wrote "I should be unjust if I did not declare that I saw none of that unnecessary and wanton exposure described by Lady Mary Montagu. Either the fair Ambassadress was present at a peculiar ceremony, or the Turkish ladies have become more delicate and fastidious in the ideas of propriety."
Emmeline Lott, who wrote a book about her experience working as a governess for the son of Ishamel Pasha, claimed that Montagu's aristocratic rank meant that she had seen only the most attractive elements of Oriental life: "…her handsome train, Lady Ambassadress as she was, swept but across the splendid carpeted floors of these noble Saloons of Audience, all of which had been, as is invariably the custom, well “swept and garnished” for her reception."
In 1739 a book was printed by an unknown
author under the pseudonym "Sophia, a person of quality",
titled Woman not Inferior to Man. This book is
often attributed to Lady Mary.
Her Letters and Works were
published in 1837. Montagu's octogenarian granddaughter Lady Louisa
Stuart contributed to this, anonymously, an introductory essay
called Biographical Anecdotes of Lady M. W. Montagu, from which it
was clear that Stuart was troubled by her grandmother's focus on sexual
intrigues and did not see Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's Account of the
Court of George I at his Accession as history.
However, Montagu's historical observations, both in the "Anecdotes" and the "Turkish Embassy Letters," prove quite accurate when put in context.
However, Montagu's historical observations, both in the "Anecdotes" and the "Turkish Embassy Letters," prove quite accurate when put in context.
In 1901 her letters were edited and
published as The Best Letters of Mary Wortley Montagu by Octave
Thanet.
Feminism and her relationship with Elizabeth Montagu wife of Edward
Mary Montague criticised contemporary
social attitudes towards women in many of her writings. In one of the issues of
the Nonsense of Common Sense, she defended the dignity of women as moral and
intellectual beings equal and in some ways even superior to men. In it, she
stated: "Men, that have not sense enough to show any superiority in their
arguments, hope to be yielded to by a faith that, as they are men, all the
reason that has been allotted to human kind had fallen to their share. I am
seriously of another opinion." She may also have been the author of a
fairly radical anonymous pamphlet entitled Woman not inferior.
In Three Volumes. Elizabeth Montagu Is
Considered One Of The Leading Lights Of A Group Of Independently Minded English
Women In Mid 18th Century London. The Group, Known As The Bluestockings, Held
Literary Evenings, In Direct Imitation Of The Established Salons Of Paris, To
Which Well-Known Men Of Letters Would Be Invited As Guests To Encourage
Discussion. Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu, Was A Powerful And Rich Figure In London
Society, She Was The Cousin Of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Who Brought Smallpox
Inoculation Back From Turkey.
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