Dunlop

1818 · 85366 — Greenock Scotland: Printed by Robert Donaldson 1818. Privately printed. Hardcover. Very Good. Full contemporary calf. Octavo 7 3/4" x 5. pp. vi 159. Rubbing to extremities. Rebacked in sympathetic brown calf four raised bands with contrasting bergundy spine label lettered in gilt. Bookplate "Blythswood" to front pastedown. Long manuscript inscription mentioning literary executor John Dunlop consisting of 16 lines to front flyleaf dated 1899 strongly emphasizing the intention for its contents to be "strictly private" for ".friends." etc. <br /> <br /> INSCRIBED from General Sir James Steuart son of Sir James Steuart named in the letters to Archibald Campbell of Blythswood Esquire. Pages very clean. OCLC # 503816376. According to Worldcat the only other copy can be found in the British Library. <br /> <br /> NOTE: This volume is not to be confused with other volumes of Lady Montague's letters. There are no transaction records for this privately-issued volume on Rare Book Hub. These letters to Sir James and Lady Frances Steuart were written between May of 1758 and July of 1762. On August 21 LMWM died of breast cancer just seven weeks after her last letter to Lady Frances Steuart was written -- on July 2nd. LMWM wrote the letters in her last surviving important correspondence: with Sir James and Lady Frances Steuart. In that final letter LMWM wrote: "Dear Madam -- I have been ill a long time and am now so bad I am little capable of writing" going on to assure Lady Frances : "I am always told your affairs shall be taken care of. You may depend dear Madam nothing shall be wanting on the part of your Ladyships faithful humble Servant" signed M.W. Montague. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu 1689-1762 the famed English writer poet and traveller corresponded with Sir James and Lady Francis Steuart while travelling the continent. . The Steuarts had been exiled from their home in Scotland after their alleged involvement in the 1745 Jacobite uprising. They did not return to Scotland until 1763. Sir James Steuart an economic theorist Steuart's "Inquiry into the Principles of Political Oeconomy" was the first systematic economic treatise to be published in Britain and introduced the very term 'political economy' into the English language. Steuart often sent Montague his manuscript writings for her commentary. Montagu is perhaps best remembered for her writings on the Ottoman Empire and their practice of smallpox inoculation. However her letters to the Steuarts relate important current events in Italy and the Netherlands as well as her views on health gender and education. Montague writes in her characteristically witty style throughout. In one instance she writes "I own I am charmed with.the reproach which you men so saucily throw on our sex as if we alone were subject to vapours.you vile usurpers do not only engross learning power and authority to yourselves but will be our superiors even in constitution of mind and fancy you are incapable of the woman's weakness of fear and tenderness" 17 This copy is one of "a few printed for strictly private" circulation. <br /> <br /> Scottish General James Steuart 1744-1839 son of Sir James and Lady Francis Steuart of Coltness confided the task of editing his family's letters and papers to John Dunlop 1785-1842 a Scottish commentator on literature. As the address to the reader states "Sir James Steuart had no intention till very lately of Printing this little volume; but it having been represented to him how much some of his particular friends would be gratified by a perusal of letters from the pen of Lady M.W. Montague.he at length consented to the letters being put into their present form and to have only a few copies of them thrown off" Preface to the Letters. General James Steuart presented this copy to one of those gratified friends Archibald Campbell 1763-1838 of Blythswood House MP for Glasgow. Its existence as a privately printed work testifies to the enduring legacy of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. ODNB and Wikipedia. Printed by Robert Donaldson hardcover