SOURCE: Jones, W. Powell. “The Romantic Bluestocking, Elizabeth Montagu.” Huntington Library Quarterly 12, no. 1 (1949): 85-98.

In the following essay, Jones discusses the importance of Montagu's letters and what they reveal about her. He also examines several unpublished pieces of correspondence in terms of the literary theory contained therein, focusing especially on the eighteenth century conception of romanticism.

I

Elizabeth Robinson Montagu, “Queen of the Bluestockings,” is perhaps the most famous of those learned ladies of eighteenth-century England who courted literary circles, collected celebrities, and strove to be known as people of learning. Because of her social connections, her wealth, and the publication in 1769 of her Essay on the Writings and Genius of Shakespeare, she was better known than her fellow “bluestockings,” Mrs. Carter, Mrs. Vesey, and Mrs. Chapone, with all of whom she was intimately acquainted. The celebrities of the day, even Dr. Johnson, came to her exotic “Chinese...