Abstract
Published in 1763, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s Travels are the only known eighteenth-century travelogue written and printed by an Englishwoman who had seen Asia, Africa, or the Ottoman Empire. Montagu, born Mary Pierrepont, was the firstborn child of Evelyn and Mary Pierrepont (Fielding). In 1690 her father became Earl of Kingston, and she became Lady Mary. Her mother died in 1692. By the time Montagu was 12, she was writing poetry and calling herself an author; she soon taught herself Latin. In 1712 her father arranged her marriage with an Irish peer; in response, she eloped with Edward Wortley Montagu. He was connected to London literary and political circles, and the marriage supported Montagu’s writerly and civic aspirations.
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Notes
Horace Walpole’s Correspondence with Sir Horace Mann, vol. 6, ed. W.S. Lewis et al. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1960), 84.
Montagu: “the city itself is very large, and extremely populous, here are hot baths, very famous for their medicinal virtues.” (Letter 25, my text). Grundy: “Sofia’s medicinal hot springs come at about 46.8°C” (Lady Mary Wortley Montagu: Comet of the Enlightenment [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999], 137).
Aaron Hill (1685–1750), A Full and Just Account of the Present State of the Ottoman Empire (London, 1709): “The Second sort of Bagnio’s, are those Publick Places where for payment of a Penny or Three-half-pence, they are wash’d Politely, and supplied with Linen, or whatever else the Bath requires, by the diligent Attendance of appropriated Servants … These Publick Baths are very common in their largest Cities …” (50). In the Catalogus Bibliothecae Kingstoniae (CBK), the printed catalogue of the library owned by Montagu’s father.
Aphra Behn, The Emperor of the Moon (London, 1687). Doctor Baliardo asks Harlequin if, on the Lunar Mundus, the women drink, gamble, or scheme as they do in London. Harlequin replies yes, and the Doctor responds, “Just as ’tis here” (III.i).
Paul Rycaut: “The delightful Fields of Asia, the pleasant Plains of Tempe and Thrace, all the Plenty of Egypt … the Tributary Principalities of Moldavia and Walachia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Servia, and the best part of Hungary, concur together to satisfie the Appetite of one single person … the Grand Signior, in his sole Disposal and Gift they remain” (The Present State of the Ottoman Empire. … [London: J. Starkey & Brome, 1668], 2:2).
John Donne, “To his Mistris Going to Bed” (pub. 1669), 20–21: “Thou Angel bring’st with thee / A heaven like Mahomets Paradise.” The Elegies and The Songs and Sonnets, ed. Helen Gardner (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965), 15.
The virtuous wife of Collatinus Tarquinius. Livy: “Sextus Tarquinius was bewitched and possessed with wicked wanton lust, for to offer violence and villanie unto Lucretia … Tarquinius in great pride and jolitie, that he had by assault won the fort of a womans honor, departed thence … shee stabbed her selfe to the heart, and sinking downe forward, fell upon the floore readie to yeeld up the ghost …” The Romane Historie Written by T.Tivius of Padua, trans. Philemon Holland (London, 1600), 40–41. In CBK.
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© 2001 Ivo Kamps and Jyotsna G. Singh
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Chung, R. (2001). Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. In: Kamps, I., Singh, J.G. (eds) Travel Knowledge. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-62233-7_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-62233-7_12
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
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