Elizabeth Montagu is best known as “the Queen of the Blues”, for her hosting of “bluestocking circle” gatherings. This circle included aesthetic theorist and politician Edmund Burke, classicist Elizabeth Carter, actor David Garrick, and conduct book writer Hester Chapone. Montagu’s gatherings functioned as British salons, within which she was able to encourage a younger generation of women writers, including poets like Helen Maria Williams.

Elizabeth was born at York on October 2, 1720, to Matthew Robinson, a landed Yorkshire squire, and Elizabeth Robinson (née Drake), an heiress to property in Kent and Cambridgeshire. She had seven brothers and one younger sister. In 1727, Elizabeth’s mother inherited her property at Kent and

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First published 04 March 2004

[http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3156, accessed 9 February 2010.]