Although Lady Mary Wortley Montagu is primarily known for her Turkish Embassy Letters, she was a prolific writer who also produced political journalism, poems, drama, essays and romantic prose fiction. Due to her sex and aristocratic disdain for publication, Lady Mary circulated her manuscripts privately and only printed a little anonymously. Her reputation also suffered for two centuries after her death as a consequence of Alexander Pope’s very public and vicious literary attacks. Recently critics such as Robert Halsband and Isobel Grundy have rescued her from Pope’s satirical pen and assured her a place as a writer in her own right. An outspoken, witty and unconventional woman, she continues to incite critical controversy due to

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First published 23 April 2004

Citation: Winch, Alison. "Lady Mary Wortley Montagu". The Literary Encyclopedia. 23 April 2004.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3157, accessed 9 February 2010.]