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The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762)
Montagu, Mary Wortley, Lady. A famous English letter-writer; born at Thoresby, Notts, May 26, 1689; died in England, Aug. 21, 1762. Her high birth (eldest daughter of an earl afterwards duke) gave her brilliant wit and literary gifts national fame. Accompanying her husband (grandson of the first Earl of Sandwich, and the richest commoner in England) to Constantinople, where he was minister to the Porte (1716–17), she assisted in introducing from the East into England the practice of inoculation. At one time the friend of Pope, she quarreled with him afterward. From 1739 to 1762, having left her husband, she was again abroad, settling in 1758 at Venice. Her ‘Letters,’ with a life, appear in her works (3d ed. 1887). (See Critical and Biographical Introduction).