Lady Mary Wortley Montagu by Isobel Grundy
This book is the first to look at Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's achievement as a vital figure in the women's literary tradition. Robert Halsband's book on her life, the sixth this century and published in 1956, was the first to apply scholarly techniques to establishing the facts. The inaccurate accounts given before Halsband testify to Lady Mary's compelling interest as a woman who wrote, travelled, campaigned publicly for medical advance, gossiped, and was involved in high-profile literary quarrels. Knowledge of her life has made considerable gains since Halsband, as understanding of the issues involved in trying to move between the roles of proper lady and woman writer has increased enormously. This life fruitfully exploits the tension between literary history and feminist reading. Isobel Grundy highlights Montagu's adolescent longing for literary fame, her growing understanding of the implications of this for gender and class imperatives, the frustrations and concessions involved in her collaborations with male writers, the punitive responses of society, the gaps at every stage of her life between her ascertainable circumstances and her construction of herself in letters and other writings. The book situates those writings in relation to her own theorizing and her very wide reading in women's texts as well as men's. Finally, it looks at a range of contemporary and near-contemporary responses.
Its detail.. is truly prodigious ... It deserves to be praised to the skies. Mark Bostridge, The Independent on Sunday, 09/05/99. quite simply, the most interesting biography of a woman I have read for years; it is also a marvellously rich account of an exuberant period Miranda Seymour, Sunday Times, 11.4.99 Isobel Grundy has turned a potential weakness into a strength by a triumphant combination of historical precision with imaginative tact. This is an indispensible, unputdownable account for anyone interested in a character who stood out in her own and later generations. Hilary Spurling, Daily Telegraph, Sat 01/05/99 a book of the year Christopher Hawtree, Words column, The Independent, 06/05/99.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780198112891 |
| ISBN 10 | 0198112890 |
| Title | Lady Mary Wortley Montagu |
| Author | Isobel Grundy |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press |
| Year published | 1999-03-01 |
| Number of pages | 704 |
| Prizes | Short-listed for James Tait Black Memorial Book Prizes: Biography 2000 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |