Elizabeth Montagu, the Queen of the Bluestockings

Bluestocking, author and hostess, Elizabeth Montagu (1718–1800) exercised an influence far beyond literary scholarship. Compiled by a relative, Emily Climenson, and published in 1906, this collection of her correspondence provides an excellent introduction to the culture and politics of eighteenth-century polite society. In chapters enriched by portraits of both Elizabeth and her correspondents, readers are invited to witness the public and personal interactions and entertainments of Montagu and her circle. The text contains accounts of operas, masquerades, concerts and marriages, and serious philosophical conjectures are mingled with witty and sometimes acerbic notes on 'gowns and fans', 'the northern gentry' and women suffering from the vapours. Volume 2 covers arguably the most prolific period in Montagu's life, from 1751 to 1761, and reveals her personal views on such diverse subjects as the price of food, David Garrick's playhouse on Drury Lane and the work of Laurence Sterne.