Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley

Lady Mary, as Montagu is known, was among the truly independent women of eighteenth-century England. During her lifetime she was much admired as a poet of stylish wit; afterward she was highly regarded as a correspondent of keen observation. While still a young woman, she eloped with Edward Wortley Montagu and, when he was appointed ambassador, accompanied him to Constantinople. On her return to England, she brought with her the vaccine for smallpox (she had meanwhile contracted the disease). She was the leading woman of letters of her day, and, while she quarreled in print with her friends Al...