The eldest daughter in a notable family (her sister was the novelist Sarah Scott), Elizabeth Robinson married Edward Montagu, a wealthy physician, in 1742. Her contributions to George Lyttelton's Dialogues of the Dead, and her own Essay on Shakespeare were widely admired, establishing the writer as something of an arbiter of taste in high society, where she became an important patron to persons in literature, religion, and the arts. Her literary reputation was ultimately based on her letters, posthumously published by her nephew Matthew Montagu.
TEXT RECORDS:
1771[To Dr. John Gregory, 13 March 1771; on Beattie's Minstrel.]
PUBLICATIONS:
An essay on the writings and genius of Shakespear. 1769.
Letters of Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu. 4 vols, 1809-13.
Letters to the Duchess of Portland. 1904, 1907.
Letters [to 1761], ed. E. J. Climenson. 2 vols, 1906.
Letters [1762 to 1800], ed. R. Blunt. 2 vols, 1923.
PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:
English
Anglican
privately educated
woman writer
essayist
James Pettit Andrews
Anna Laetitia Barbauld
James Beattie
Edmund Burke
Richard Owen Cambridge
Elizabeth Carter
Hester Mulso Chapone
David Garrick
Anne Hunter
Edward Jerningham
Samuel Johnson
Sir William Jones
Lord Kames
Rev. Vicesimus Knox
George Lyttelton
Hannah More
Rev. Robert Potter
Joshua Reynolds
John Scott of Amwell
Horace Walpole
Rev. Joseph Warton
Gilbert West
Ann Yearsley
Edward Young
REFERENCE:
DNB; NCBEL.
"Particulars relating to Mrs. Montagu and Mrs. Barbauld" Westminster Magazine 4 (June 1776) 283-85 [portrait]; "Sketch of the Character of Mrs. Montague" New Lady's Magazine 2 (April 1787) 197 [portrait]; Catalogue of five hundred Celebrated Authors (1788); "Sketch of the Character of Mrs. Montagu" New London Magazine 5 (November 1789) 546 [portrait]; David Rivers, Literary Memoirs of Living Authors (1798); obituary in St. James's Chronicle (30 August 1800); "Some Account of the late Mrs. Montagu" European Magazine 38 (October 1800) 243-44 [portrait]; obituary in Monthly Magazine 10 (October 1800) 275; obituary in Gentleman's Magazine 70 (December 1800) 904; "Mrs. Montagu" Lady's Monthly Museum 5 (December 1800) 421-24 [portrait]; Annual Register for 1800 (1800) 31; obituary in Universal Magazine 108 (June 1801) 410-11; Samuel Egerton Brydges, "Mrs. Montagu" Censura Literaria 1 (1805) 87-94, 2 (1806) 178; Francis Jeffrey, "Mrs. Montagu's Letters" Edinburgh Review 15 (1809); Alexander Chalmers, General Biographical Dictionary (1812-17); Nichols, Literary Anecdotes (1812-15) 9:594-96; "Biographical Memoir of Elizabeth Montagu" Ladies' Monthly Museum S3 2 (October 1815) 181-83 [portrait]; Elizabeth Carter, Letters ... to Mrs. Montagu, ed. Pennington (1817); "Elizabeth Montagu" The Parterre [Philadelphia] 2 (January 1817) 6; "Letters of Mrs. Montagu" Port Folio S4 11 (May 1821) 150-61; Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); The Georgian Era: Memoirs of the most Eminent Persons (1832-34); Anne Katherine Elwood, Memoirs of Literary Ladies of England (1843); Katherine Byerley Thomson, in Recollections of Literary Characters (1854); Sarah Josepha Hale, Woman's Record (1855); Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); John Doran, A Lady of the Last Century (1873); Chambers's Cyclopaedia of English Literature, 3rd ed. (1876); Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism (1901-05); Emily J. Clemenson, Elizabeth Montagu ... her Correspondence from 1720 to 1761 (1906); Rene Louis Huchon, Mrs. Montagu, 1720-1800, an Essay (1906); J. M. Beattie, "Mrs. Montagu, Churchill, and Miss Cheere" MLN 41 (1926); J. Busse, Mrs. Montagu, Queen of the Blues (1928); C. E. Jones, Johnson and Mrs. Montagu Notes and Queries (7 September 1946); K. G. Hornbeck, "New Light on Mrs. Montagu" in The Age of Johnson (1949); W. P. Jones, "The Romantic Bluestocking" Huntington Library Quarterly 12 (1949); I. A. Ross, "A Bluestocking over the Border: Mrs. Montagu's aesthetic Adventures in Scotland" Huntington Library Quarterly 28 (1965); Butt, OHEL (1979); Todd, Dictionary of ... Women Writers 1660-1800 (1987).
COMMENTARY RECORDS
for Elizabeth Montagu:
BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for Elizabeth Montagu:
AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(commentary records)