Item #000010951 The Works of the Right Honorable Lady Mary Wortley Montagu Including Her Correspondence, Poems, and Essays; Published by Permission from Her Genuine Papers. Mary Wortley Montagu.
The Works of the Right Honorable Lady Mary Wortley Montagu Including Her Correspondence, Poems, and Essays; Published by Permission from Her Genuine Papers

The Works of the Right Honorable Lady Mary Wortley Montagu Including Her Correspondence, Poems, and Essays; Published by Permission from Her Genuine Papers

London: Printed for Richard Phillips, 1803. First edition. Hardcover. 5 vol. 12mo. [3], iv-v, [4], 10-309, [5]; [5], vi-xi, [2], 2-339, [3]; [5], 2-288, [2]; [3], 2-326, [4]; [5], 2-292, [39] pp. Contemporary calf with a gilt border on each board, gilt borders to the turn-ins, gilt decorations to the edges of the boards, spines in six compartments, each with two brown leather labels lettered in gold, gilt decorations on the spine; all edges decoratively speckled. Marbled endpapers and pastedowns. All volumes with their fly-titles except for volume four. Volume one illustrated with a frontispiece portrait of Lady Montagu, with six folding plates, and three additional plates. Volume five is the only other volume illustrated with a plate. The set edited by James Dallaway. Lowndes 1587. Oxford DNB, Isobel Grundy, "Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley [née Lady Mary Pierrepont] (bap. 1689, d. 1762)". Lady Mary Wortley Montagu is most famous for introducing the practice of inoculation into England. She lived in Turkey for a time with her young children and had her son inoculated against smallpox there. In England, she had her young daughter inoculated against the disease. She herself survived a bout of smallpox, with volume five containing a poem on the subject of her illness. However, Lady Montagu had many more accomplishments besides this. She was a pre-eminent woman of letters, corresponding with Congreve, Pope, and other literati of England. She lived in Turkey, Italy, and France throughout her life, and defied the expectations for women of her rank. Lady Montagu separated from her husband after an unhappy marriage (by living separately from him). She escaped a group of notorious banditti in Italy, contributed a piece to the Spectator, and translated Epictetus' Encheiridion, (the translation contained here in the first volume). This is the first collected set of her works: her poems, letters, essays, and writings on her unconventional life of adventure during the eighteenth century. Good+. Item #000010951

Significant wear to the joints and spines, one plate torn away in volume one. Each front pastedown with a contemporary bookplate and each title page with a contemporary name (Edward and Elisabeth Moore).

Price: $400.00

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