Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley

Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, 1689–1762, English author, noted primarily for her highly descriptive letters. She was the daughter of the first duke of Kingston. In 1712 she married Edward Wortley Montagu, who became ambassador to Turkey in 1716. On her return to England in 1718 she worked to educate the public in the use of inoculation against smallpox. In 1739 she left her husband and went to live on the Continent. Her Town Eclogues (1747), which gives an entertaining picture of contemporary manners, was first published by Edmund Curll in a pirated edition in 1716. She is remembered for her quarrel with Pope, who had once been her ardent admirer and who attacked her viciously in his poetry. Horace Walpole disliked her also and depicted her as a greedy, heartless eccentric. However, recent studies have defended her as a brilliant woman struggling for emancipation. Her letters were first published in 1763.

Bibliography

See the complete letters (1965–67) and selections (1970), both ed. by R. Halsband, also biography by R. Halsband (1956).

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Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley

 orig. Lady Mary Pierrepont

(baptized May 26, 1689, London, Eng.—died Aug. 21, 1762, London) English writer, the most colourful Englishwoman of her time. A prolific letter writer, Montagu is remembered chiefly for 52 superb letters chronicling her stay in Constantinople, where her husband was ambassador from 1716 to 1718. On their return, they introduced the Middle Eastern practice of smallpox vaccination into England. Also a poet, essayist, feminist, and eccentric, she was a friend of John Gay and Alexander Pope, who later turned against and satirized her. Among her writings are six “town eclogues,” witty adaptations of Virgil; a lively attack on Jonathan Swift (1734); and essays dealing with feminism and the moral cynicism of her time.