Name/TitleLetters of the Right Honourable Lady M---y W---y M---e
MakerMontagu, Mary Wortley, Lady, 1689-1762
Maker RoleAuthor
About this objectLeather-bound hardcover publication titled 'Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M---y W---y M---e: Written, during her Travels in Europe, Asia and Africa to Persons of Distinction, Men of Letters, &c. in different parts of Europe, which contain, among other curious relations, Accounts of the Policy and Manners of the Turks; drawn from Sources that have been inaccessible to other Travellers.' This edition published a select collection of letters; the original manuscript was created in Venice earlier in the 18th century.
Medium and MaterialsOrganic, leather, board and paper
MeasurementsH: 177 x W: 105 x D: 24 mm
Date Made1771
Period18th century
Place MadeEngland, London
Place NotesMary Cooper (publisher), Paternoster Row, London
PublisherMary Cooper
Publication Date1771
Publication PlaceEngland, London
Subject and Association Descriptionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Mary_Wortley_Montagu:
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (née Pierrepont; 15 May 1689 – 21 August 1762) was an English aristocrat, medical pioneer, writer, and poet. Born in 1689, Lady Mary spent her early life in England. In 1712, Lady Mary married Edward Wortley Montagu, who later served as the British ambassador to the Sublime Porte. Lady Mary joined her husband on the Ottoman excursion, where she was to spend the next two years of her life. During her time there, Lady Mary wrote extensively on her experience as a woman in Ottoman Constantinople. After her return to England, Lady Mary devoted her attention to the upbringing of her family before dying of cancer in 1762. Although having regularly socialised with the court of George I and George Augustus, Prince of Wales (later King George II) , Lady Mary is today chiefly remembered for her letters, particularly her Turkish Embassy Letters describing her travels to the Ottoman Empire, as wife to the British ambassador to Turkey, which Billie Melman describes as "the very first example of a secular work by a woman about the Muslim Orient". Aside from her writing, Mary is also known for introducing and advocating smallpox inoculation in Britain after her return from Turkey. Her writings address and challenge some contemporary social attitudes towards women and their intellectual and social growth at that time [continues].
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Cooper_(publisher):
Mary Cooper (d. August 5, 1761) was an English publisher and bookseller based in London who flourished between 1743 and 1761. With Thomas Boreman, she is the earliest publisher of children's books in English, predating John Newbery. Cooper's business was on Paternoster Row. She was the widow of printer and publisher Thomas Cooper, whose business she continued. Thomas Cooper had published a reading guide in 1742, The Child's New Play-thing, and his wife published an edition of it after his death. Active from 1743 to 1761, she is notable especially for publishing Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book (1744), "the first known collection of English nursery rhymes in print". Cooper collected the rhymes, each of which had a companion woodcut, and later critics have remarked that "Cooper's ear for a good jingle was unerring". With her husband, she was a trade publisher, meaning she did not own the copyright to works they published, meaning also that the actual copyright owner could remain anonymous, a benefit when the book was controversial—one of the Coopers' books was the (anonymously printed) erotic novel A Secret History of Pandora's Box (1742). As such, Cooper had business arrangements with Andrew Millar, Henry Fielding's publisher, and printed a number of Fielding's pamphlets. She was an exception to the perception that 18th-century women in the publishing business were of only minor importance; besides functioning as a trade publisher she owned the copyright to "at least 18" titles. She is also credited with publishing a newspaper, the Manchester Vindicated, remarked on in 1749.
University of Michigan Library Digital Collections:
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=evans;idno=N31507.0001.001
Subject and Association KeywordsTravel
Subject and Association Keywordsfemale relationships
Subject and Association Keywordswomen's writing & literature
Subject and Association Keywordscorrespondence, letters or postcards
Object TypePublication
Object numberGWL-2024-25
Spine LabelMONTAGU LETTERS
Copyright LicenceAll rights reserved