
Essays and Poems and 'Simplicity', a Comedy
Edited by Robert / Grundy, Isobel Halsband
Mary Wortley Montagu(Author)
Clarendon Press
Published on 19. August 1993
Book
Paperback/Softback
442 pages
978-0-19-812288-3 (ISBN)
Description
Despite being an aristocrat and a woman, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689 - 1762) made herself a writer. Lady Mary has long been well-known as a `character' a letter writer, and a traveller, this revised paperback edition of her non-epistolary writings appears at a time when interest in her literary work is now widespread and serious.
Lady Mary 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 her secret connivance) deal with issues still alive and accessible today: love, marriage, prejudice against women writers, the medical breakthrough of smallpox innoculation. Her comedy, Simplicity, has been recently revived in productions around the U.K.
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 writing.
Lady Mary 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 her secret connivance) deal with issues still alive and accessible today: love, marriage, prejudice against women writers, the medical breakthrough of smallpox innoculation. Her comedy, Simplicity, has been recently revived in productions around the U.K.
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 writing.
Reviews / Votes
'This is a welcome new scholarly edition of Lady Mary's non-epistolary works. It also makes entertaining and thought-provoking reading!'David Doughan, Fawcett Library - Newsletter, Oct '93 Lady mary Wortley Montague's poems, essays, and play, splendidly edited by Robert Halsband and Isobel Grundy...is another reprint, this one in paperback with a fine new preface by Grundy, and ought to be widely acquired. 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 * scholarly edition...For the first time I have been able to read the full text of her poetically accomplished, but cruel, attack on Pope after their friendship had ruptured...I learned a great deal from the footnotes, which though economical carry an immense weight of scholarship. * The New Rambler D IX *
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Oxford University Press
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
frontispiece, halftones
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 138 mm
Thickness: 26 mm
Weight
632 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-812288-3 (9780198122883)
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Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada
Author
Editor
late Professor of Englishlate Professor of English, University of Illinois
Henry Marshall Tory ProfessorHenry Marshall Tory Professor, University of Alberta
Content
Essays; poems; "Simplicity, A Comedy".