THE ADMIRABLE LADY MARY

The Life and Times of Lady Mary Worley Montagu -- told in admirable fashion. Here is a portrait of the woman and her place in the 18th century, a high spirited, literary, accomplished female and an honest, intelligent woman. Her emergence as a lady of fashion and importance, her headstrong attitude toward the scandal brewed by Pope, her exile of twenty years and her return home to die of cancer, are treated with sympathy and kindness, and a careful criticism. The result is an accomplished mirroring of an English lady of quality, whose life -- as a writer, as a wife and mother, as a source of scandal -- offers reading of vivid interest.