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Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
Comet of the Enlightenment

Isobel Grundy

Price: £23.00 (paper)
ISBN-13: 978-0-19-818765-3
Publication date: 22 March 2001
714 pages, 10 halftones & 3 maps, 234x156 mm
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Reviews
  • 'This is an accomplished and scholarly biography of a compelling individual. It is also a literary life that throws much light on the Augustan world of letters. Furthermore, this study carries conviction in part because Isobel Grundy does not exaggerate the importance of her subject ... fine study ... a wealth of information and reflection, and a careful piecing-together of a fascinating life.' - Jeremy Black, THES 25/2/00
  • 'Review from previous edition This is an accomplished and scholarly biography of a compelling individual. It is also a literary life that throws much light on the Augustan world of letters. Furthermore, this study carries conviction in part because Isobel Grundy does not exaggerate the importance of her subject ... fine study ... a wealth of information and reflection, and a careful piecing-together of a fascinating life.' - Jeremy Black, THES 25/2/00

Description
  • Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762) is one of the most important women writers between Aphra Behn and Jane Austen, and one of the period's most provocative and entertaining writers of either sex
  • Lady Mary has a compelling interest as a woman who wrote, travelled, campaigned publicly for medical advance, gossiped, and was involved in high-profile literary quarrels. Montagu is a key figure in the emerging women's literary tradition
  • This book highlights Montagu's adolescent longing for literary fame, her conflicted negotiations with manuscript culture and the new world of print, and the punitive responses of her society to her challenging public oeuvre
This book is the first to look at Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's achievement as a vital figure in the women's literary tradition. Robert Halsband's book on her life, the sixth this century and published in 1956, was the first to apply scholarly techniques to establishing the facts. The inaccurate accounts given before Halsband testify to Lady Mary's compelling interest as a woman who wrote, travelled, campaigned publicly for medical advance, gossiped, and was involved in high-profile literary quarrels. Knowledge of her life has made considerable gains since Halsband, as understanding of the issues involved in trying to move between the roles of proper lady and woman writer has increased enormously. This life fruitfully exploits the tension between literary history and feminist reading. Isobel Grundy highlights Montagu's adolescent longing for literary fame, her growing understanding of the implications of this for gender and class imperatives, the frustrations and concessions involved in her collaborations with male writers, the punitive responses of society, the gaps at every stage of her life between her ascertainable circumstances and her construction of herself in letters and other writings. The book situates those writings in relation to her own theorizing and her very wide reading in women's texts as well as men's. Finally, it looks at a range of contemporary and near-contemporary responses.

Authors, editors, and contributors


Isobel Grundy, Henry Marshall Tory Professor, University of Alberta, Canada


Links to web resources and related information
More in the same subject area:
Literature: history & criticism
Literature: texts
Travel writing
Women's studies

The specification in this catalogue, including without limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations, and month of publication, was as accurate as possible at the time the catalogue was compiled. Occasionally, due to the nature of some contractual restrictions, we are unable to ship a specific product to a particular territory. Jacket images are provisional and liable to change before publication.

 
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