Essays and Poems and Simplicity, a Comedy (Clarendon Paperbacks) [Paperback]

Mary Wortley Montagu (Author), Robert Halsband (Editor), Isobel Grundy (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0198122888 | ISBN-13: 978-0198122883 | Publication Date: October 21, 1993

Although Lady Mary was long well-known as a "character," a letter writer, and a traveler, there has recently been a renewed widespread and serious interest in her literary work. Despite being an aristocrat and a woman, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762) made herself into a writer. She saw herself as "haunted by the Daemon of Poesie." She wrote literary criticism of Addison and the only essay by a woman published in the Spectator, together with spirited verse replies to Pope and Swift, and passionate love-poems which dispute the period's label "Age of Reason." Her essays (some published anonymously in newspapers) and poems (many of which appeared with or without her secret connivance) deal with issues still alive and accessible today: love, marriage, prejudice against women writers, and the medical breakthrough of smallpox innoculation. Hard-hitting, eloquent, and often funny, the work of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu will be essential reading for the growing number of scholars, students, and general readers of women's writings.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The originality, strength, and brilliance of Lady Mary's work is often dazzling, but never more so than when seen here as a corpus."--Eighteenth Century Studies

About the Author

Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada

Product Details

• Paperback: 456 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (October 21, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0198122888
• ISBN-13: 978-0198122883
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,436,166 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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