Elizabeth Montagu, the Queen of the Bluestockings: Her Correspondence from 1720 to 1761

by Elizabeth Montagu, Emily J. Climenson (Compiler)

Overview

Bluestocking, author and hostess, Elizabeth Montagu (1718–1800) exercised an influence far beyond literary scholarship. Compiled by a relative, Emily Climenson, and published in 1906, this collection of her correspondence provides an excellent introduction to the culture and politics of eighteenth-century polite society. In chapters enriched by portraits of both Elizabeth and her correspondents, readers are invited to witness the public and personal interactions and entertainments of Montagu and her circle. The text contains accounts of operas, masquerades, concerts and marriages, and serious philosophical conjectures are mingled with witty and sometimes acerbic notes on 'gowns and fans', 'the northern gentry', 'spa towns' and the gallant actions of 'a brave gamekeeper'. Interwoven with portions of letters received from intimate friends, in particular the Duke and Duchess of Portland, Volume 1 takes the reader from Montagu's birth through to 1751.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781108029520
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	06/16/2011
Series:	Cambridge Library Collection - British & Irish History, 17th & 18th Centuries
Edition description:	Reissue
Pages:	344
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.00(d)

Table of Contents

Preface; 1. The Robinson, Sterne, and Morris families; 2. Correspondence with Duchess of Portland; 3. Hairdressing; 4. Love triumphs; 5. Journey to London; 6. Correspondence with the Duchess of Portland; 7. Correspondence with the Duchess of Portland; 8. Ranelagh masquerade.