Mary Wortley Montague, by Charles Jervas, after 1716.

The Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (May 26, 1689-August 21, 1762), was an English aristocrat and writer, chiefly remembered today for her letters. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1256x2001, 225 KB) Description: Title: de: Porträt der Lady Mary Wortley Montagu Technique: de: Öl auf Leinwand Dimensions: de: 215,5 × 127,5 cm Country of origin: de: Irland Current location (city): de: Dublin Current location (gallery): de: National Gallery... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1256x2001, 225 KB) Description: Title: de: Porträt der Lady Mary Wortley Montagu Technique: de: Öl auf Leinwand Dimensions: de: 215,5 × 127,5 cm Country of origin: de: Irland Current location (city): de: Dublin Current location (gallery): de: National Gallery... Porträt der Lady Mary Wortley Montagu , 1716 by Charles Jervis currently on display at the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin. ... May 26 is the 146th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (147th in leap years). ... Events Louis XIV of France passed the Code Noir, allowing the full use of slaves in the French colonies. ... August 21 is the 233rd day of the year (234th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1762 was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... The English are an ethnic group or nation primarily associated with England and the English language. ...

Life

She was the eldest daughter of Evelyn Pierrepont, who succeeded his brother as 5th Earl of Kingston-upon-Hull when she was aged one and was later created Marquess of Dorchester and then Duke of Kingston-upon-Hull, and was baptized at Covent Garden. Her mother, who died while Mary was still a child, was a daughter of the 3rd Earl of Denbigh. Her father was proud of her beauty and wit, and when she was eight years old she is said to have been the toast of the Kit-Kat Club. He took small pains with the education of his children, but Lady Mary was encouraged in her self-imposed studies by her uncle, Henry Fielding, and by Gilbert Burnet, the Bishop of Salisbury. Evelyn Pierrepont, 5th Earl and 1st Duke of Kingston-upon-Hull (c. ... Covent Garden is a district in central London and within the easterly bounds of the City of Westminster. ... William Feilding, 3rd Earl of Denbigh (29 December 1640 – 23 August 1685) Son of George Feilding, 1st Earl of Desmond and Earl of Desmond. ... The Kit-Cat Club (sometimes Kit-Kat Club) was an early 18th century English club in London with strong political and literary associations, committed to the furtherance of Whig objectives. ... Henry Fielding (April 22, 1707 – October 8, 1754) was an English novelist and dramatist known for his rich earthy humor and satirical prowess and as the author of the novel Tom Jones. ... Gilbert Burnet (September 18, 1643-March 17, 1715) was a Scottish divine and historian, and Bishop of Salisbury. ... Arms of the Bishop of Salisbury The Bishop of Salisbury is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Salisbury in the Province of Canterbury. ...

She formed a close friendship with Mary Astell, a champion of women's rights, and with Anne Wortley Montagu, granddaughter of the 1st Earl of Sandwich. With Anne, she carried on an animated correspondence. Anne's letters, however, were often copied from drafts written by her brother, Edward Wortley Montagu, and after Anne's death in 1709 the correspondence between Edward and Lady Mary continued without an intermediary. Lady Mary's father, now Marquess of Dorchester, rejected Wortley Montagu as a son-in-law because he refused to entail his estate on a possible heir. Negotiations were broken off, and when Lord Dorchester insisted on another marriage for his daughter, Edward and Mary eloped (1712). The early years of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's married life were spent in seclusion in the country. Her husband was 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. Mary Astell (1666-1731) was a proto-feminist writer whose advocacy of equal educational opportunities for women earned her the title the first English feminist. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Edward Montagu, 1st Earl of Sandwich, 1625–1672 by Sir Peter Lely, painted 1666. ... Westminster is a district within the City of Westminster in London. ...

Early in 1716 Wortley Montagu was appointed Ambassador at Constantinople. Lady Mary accompanied him to Vienna, and thence to Adrianople and Constantinople. He was recalled in 1717, but they remained at Constantinople until 1718. The story of this voyage and of her observations of Eastern life is told in the Turkish Embassy Letters, a series of lively letters full of graphic description; Letters is often credited as being an inspiration for subsequent female traveller/writers, as well as for much Orientalist art. // Events August 5 - In the Battle of Peterwardein 40. ... Map of Constantinople. ... Inhabitants according to official census figures: 1800 to 2005 Vienna in 1858 UN complex in Vienna, with the non-affiliated Austria Center Vienna in front - picture taken from Danube Tower in nearby Danube Park. ... Edirne is a city in (Thrace), the westernmost part of Turkey, close to the borders with Greece and Bulgaria. ... // Events January 4 — The Netherlands, Britain & France sign Triple Alliance February 26-March 6 What is now the northeastern United States was paralyzed by a series of blizzards that buried the region. ... Orientalism is the study of Near and Far Eastern societies and cultures, by Westerners. ...

From the Ottoman Empire, Lady Mary (who herself bore the scars of smallpox, and had lost her brother to it) brought back the practice of inoculation against the disease. She had her own children inoculated, and encountered a vast amount of prejudice in bringing the matter forward. 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. Imperial motto (Ottoman Turkish) دولت ابد مدت Devlet-i Ebed-müddet (The Eternal State) The Ottoman Empire at the height of its power (1683) Official language Ottoman Turkish Capital Söğüt (1299-1326), Bursa (1326-1365), Edirne (1365-1453), Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) (1453-1922) Imperial anthem Ottoman imperial anthem Sovereigns Padishah... Smallpox (also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera) was a highly contagious viral disease unique to humans. ... Inoculation, originally Variolation, is a method of purposefully infecting a person with smallpox (Variola) in a controlled manner so as to minimise the severity of the infection and also to induce immunity against further infection. ... Alexander Pope, an English poet best known for his Essay on Criticism and Rape of the Lock Pope, circa 1727. ...

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 Letters during the embassy to Constantinople is addressed to Pope and purports to be 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). Arms of Dover Borough Council This article is about the English port. ... November 1 is the 305th day of the year (306th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 60 days remaining. ... // Events The Funj warrior aristocracy deposes the reigning mek and places one of their own ranks on the throne of Sennar. ... John Hervey, Lord Hervey (October 13, 1696 - August 5, 1743), English statesman and writer, was the eldest son of John Hervey, 1st Earl of Bristol, by his second marriage. ... The Dunciad is a landmark literary satire by Alexander Pope published in three different versions at different times. ...

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. She asked a third person. to remonstrate, and received the obvious answer that Pope could not have foreseen that she or any one else would apply so base an insult to herself. 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 favorite 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. Hogarthian image of the South Sea Bubble by Edward Matthew Ward, Tate Gallery More well known than The South Sea Company is perhaps the South Sea Bubble (1711 - September 1720) which is the name given to the economic bubble that occurred through overheated speculation in the company shares during 1720. ...

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. 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). She lived at Avignon, at Brescia, and at Lovere, on the Lago d'Iseo. She was disfigured by a painful skin disease, 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. As Lady Mary was then in her sixty-third year, the scandalous interpretation put on the matter by Horace Walpole may safely be discarded. // About the number 1739 1739 is the smallest integer that can be written as sum of three perfect cubes, in two ways. ... Florences skyline Florence (Italian: ) is the capital city of the region of Tuscany, Italy. ... Horatio Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford, more commonly known as Horace Walpole, (September 24, 1717 – March 2, 1797), was a politician, writer and forerunner of the Gothic revival. ...   City flag City coat of arms Coordinates Time Zone CET (GMT +1) Administration Country France Région Provence-Alpes-Côte dAzur Département Vaucluse (préfecture) Arrondissement Avignon Canton Chief town of 4 cantons Intercommunality Communauté dagglomération du Grand Avignon Mayor Marie-Josée Roig  (UMP... Country Italy Region Lombardy Province Brescia (BS) Mayor Paolo Corsini (since June 10, 2003) Elevation 150 m Area 90 km² Population  - Total (as of December 31, 2004) 192,165  - Density 2,087/km² Time zone CET, UTC+1 Coordinates Gentilic Bresciani Dialing code 030 Postal code 25100 Frazioni Fornaci, Sant... Lovere is a town of Lombardy, Italy, in the province of Bergamo, at the north-west end of the Lago dIseo, 522 feet above sea-level. ...

Her 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. Her daughter Mary, Countess of Bute, 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 the 21st of August 1762. Her son, Edward, was also an author and traveller. Edward Wortley Montagu (1713 - April 29, 1776), was an English author and traveller. ...

Scholarly editions of her works only appear during the late 20th century.

She is mentioned in the Doctor Who novel Only Human by Gareth Roberts as an example of why marrying for love is "overrated". Doctor Who is a long-running British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC about a mysterious time-travelling adventurer known as The Doctor, who explores time and space with his companions, fighting evil. ... Gareth John Pritchard Roberts (born 1968) is a British television writer and novelist, best known for his work related to the science-fiction television series Doctor Who. ...

References

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

Encyclopædia Britannica, the 11th edition The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition (1910–1911) is perhaps the most famous edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. ... The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ...

Bibliography

• The complete letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, 3 vol.s, edited by Robert Halsband, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965-67.
• Romance Writings, edited by Isobel Grundy, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996.
• Essays and Poems and Simplicity, a Comedy, edited by Isobel Grundy, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977, revised 2nd 1993.

External links

• Works by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu at Project Gutenberg