The Letters of Mrs Elizabeth Montagu

This four-volume edition of the letters of Mrs Elizabeth Montagu (1718-1800), the 'Queen of the Bluestockings', was edited by her nephew and adopted son Matthew (1762-1831) and published in 1809-13. The daughter of wealthy parents, and well educated in history and languages, at the age of twenty-one she married Edward Montagu, a grandson of the earl of Sandwich whose income derived from northern estates and coal mines, and began to establish a London salon attended by the intellectual cream of British society, including Johnson, Burke, Garrick, Hannah More and Hester Chapone. The letters (and some correspondence from her circle) are arranged chronologically. Volume 3 covers the period from 1744 to 1755, and her correspondents include her sister and two of her cousins, whom she keeps supplied with gossip as well as her views on the political and intellectual life of London.