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the experience of reading in Britain, from 1450 to 1945...

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Listings for Reader:  

Elizabeth Montagu

 

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Mary Wortley Montagu : Letters

'[Mary Wortley] Montagu's Letters and accounts of the sexual freedom of Tahitian women were popular: Elizabeth Montagu and Anna Seward for instance, read both.'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Montagu      Print: Book

  

John Hawkesworth : An account of voyages...

'Even conservative Elizabeth Montagu read "Bankes' voyage", and although she disapproved his religious scepticism she also criticised the "prudery of the Ladies", who are afraid to own they have read the "Voyages"', arguing that accounts of the open sexual freedom of the "Demoiselles of Ottaheite" were less "dangerous" to young British women than the "secret" liaisons of their own society.'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Montagu      Print: Book

  

James Bruce : Travels to discover the source of the Nile, in the years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772 and 1773...

'as with history, women use their reading of travels to interrogate an androcentric concept of heroism. Elizabeth Montagu felt "surfeited" with what she thought the pointless explorations of Cook or Bruce: "of what use is this discovery of the source of the Nile?"'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Montagu      Print: Book

  

John Hawkesworth : An account of voyages undertaken... for making discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere and performed by Commodore Byrone, Captain Wallis, Captain Carteret and Captain Cook (from 1702 to 1771) drawn up from the Journals...

'Even conservative Elizabeth Montagu read "Bankes's Voyage", and although she disapproved his religious scepticism she also criticised the "prudery of the Ladies, who are afraid to own they have read the Voyages", arguing that accounts of the open sexual freedom of the "Demoiselles of Ottaheite" were less "dangerous" to young British women than the "secret" liaisons of their own society.'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Montagu      Print: Book

  

Edward Gibbon : Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

'I told him, that I had been present the day before when Mrs. Montagu, the literary lady, sat to Miss Reynolds for her picture ; and that she said, "she had bound up Mr. Gibbon's 'History' without the last two offensive chapters; for that she thought the book so far good, as it gave, in an elegant manner, the substance of the bad writers medii aevi, which the late Lord Lyttleton advised her to read." [Johnson retorts that she has not read these authors]

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Montagu      Print: Book

  

Richard Cumberland : [Odes]

'Cumberland had written two Odes, what says Mrs Montagu to me do you think of them? I think said I they are as like Gray's Odes as he can make them, Ay, replied She, as like as a little Thing can be to a big Thing, Why to be sure Madam said I he is not the great Mr Gray - he is only the [italics] Petit Gris [end italics].'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Montagu      Print: Book

  

Thomas Gray : [Odes]

'Cumberland had written two Odes, what says Mrs Montagu to me do you think of them? I think said I they are as like Gray's Odes as he can make them, Ay, replied She, as like as a little Thing can be to a big Thing, Why to be sure Madam said I he is not the great Mr Gray - he is only the [italics] Petit Gris [end italics].'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Montagu      Print: Book

 

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