The Bookshelf

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Alongside her role as a socialite and 'Queen of the Bluestockings', Elizabeth Montagu is best remembered for her contributions to literary history, as a literary critic, promoter of Shakespeare, and patron of poets, philosophers, and intellectuals. Montagu's reading practices, and the texts she chose to consult for both pleasure and rational development, are therefore central to gaining a sense of her as an intellectual, and grounding her in the historical cultural context of the Enlightenment.

Whilst the footnotes to each letter contain specific textual references, with hyperlinks to external resources, both open access and subscriber-only digital facsimiles, this Bookshelf acts as a central hub for all the books which Montagu read. This Bookshelf is also a central repository for all the books consulted in the annotation of Montagu's letters, acting as a central bibliography to the project as a whole.

Following one of the links below will take you to an individual book entry which will give you the basic metadata on the book, along with hyperlinks to the various editions of the book relevant to Montagu's letters. Where possible we have provided links to the specific editions Montagu is referring to. Where a specific edition cannot be identified from internal evidence, we have provided a link to the first edition of the work. On occasions when the first edition is not available through an open access resource we have provided a link to the earliest available edition. This Bookshelf also collates the volumes of multi-volume works, even when Montagu's reference is to a specific volume number.

Each book entry also provides a list of letters in which the book is referenced, either in the footnotes or in the body of the letter. This means that if you are interested in tracing Montagu's response to a particular text, such as James Beattie's Essays (1776) for which she solicited subscriptions for over a year, then you can access a complete list of relevant letters from the central Essays page here.

• A Fathers Legacy to His Daughters, John Gregory
• A General History of Music, Charles Burney
• A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, Samuel Johnson
• A Midsummer Night's Dream, William Shakespeare
• A Philosophical Analysis and Illustration of Some of Shakespeare's Remarkable Characters, William Richardson
• Agreeable Ugliness; or, the Triumph of the Graces, Pierre Antoine de la Place
• All the Works of Epictetus, Epictetus
• Almoran and Hamet: an Oriental Tale, John Hawkesworth
• An Account of the Life and Writings of James Beattie, William Forbes
• An account of the voyages undertaken by ' Commodore Byron, Captain Wallis, Captain Carteret, and Captain Cook, John Hawkesworth
• An Essay on Man, Alexander Pope
• An Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth, James Beattie
• An Essay on the Writings and Genius of Shakespear, Elizabeth Montagu
• An Esssay on Criticism, Alexander Pope
• An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith
• An Introduction to the Reading of the Holy' Bible by a Lady, Frances Mayne
• Archaeologia Aeliana, R.W. Rennison
• Beattie and his Friends, Margaret Forbes
• Biographical Sketches of Eminent Characters, James Cossar Ewart
• Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, W Wright-Roberts
• Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquis of Bath preserved at Longleat, Wiltshire, Elizabeth Montagu
• Companions without Vows: Relationships among Eighteenth-Century British Women, Betty Rizzo
• Comus: A Masque, John Milton
• Considerations on the State of the World with Regard to the Theory of Religion, Edmund Law
• Daily Advertiser
• Dalhousie Review, Evander King
• De L'esprit, Claude-Adrien Helvetius
• Dialogues of the Dead, George Lyttelton
• Dissertations Moral and Critical, James Beattie
• Elements of Moral Science, James Beattie
• Encyclopaedia of Literary Translation into English, Olive Classe
• English Common Law in the Age of Mansfield, James Oldham
• Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Taste and the Origin of our Ideas of Beauty, Frances Reynolds
• Essays on the Nature and Principles of Taste, Archibald Alison
• Essays. On Poetry and Music, as they affect the Mind. On Laughter, and Ludicrous Composition. On the Utility of Classical Learning, James Beattie
• Five Thousand Receipts in all the useful and domestic arts, Colin McKenzie
• Fragments of Ancient Poetry, James Macpherson
• Fumifugium: The Inconveniencie of the Aer and Smoak of London Dissipated, John Evelyn
• Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser
• Hamlet, William Shakespeare
• Henry IV:2, William Shakespeare
• Hester Lynch Piozzi: Mrs Thrale, James Clifford
• Historia Sui Temporis CXXXVIII, Jacques-Auguste de Thou
• Hume Studies, Paul Russell
• James Beattie's London Diary 1773, James Beattie
• King Lear, William Shakespeare
• Letters on Chivalry and Romance, Richard Hurd
• Letters on the Improvement of the Mind, Hester Chapone
• London Magazine; Or, Gentleman's Monthly Intelligencer, William Whitehead
• Macbeth, William Shakespeare
• Madam Britannia: Women, Church, and Nation 1712-1812, Emma Major
• Measure for Measure, William Shakespeare
• Memoirs of Her Most Excellent Majesty Sophia-Charlotte, Queen of Great Britain, John Watkins
• Mes Pensees, Baron de Montesquieu
• Millenium Hall, Sarah Scott
• Miscellaneous Works of Chesterfield'to which are prefixed memoirs of his life by M. Maty, Chesterfield
• Miscellanies: The Fourth Volume, Consisting of Verses by Dr. Swift, Dr Arbuthnot, Mr, Pope, and Mr. Gay, Peterborough
• Mrs Piozzi's Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D., during the last twenty years of his life, Hester Thrale
• Mrs. Montagu, Queen of the blues, Her Letters and Friendships from 1762-1800, Reginald Blunt
• Ode to the Naval Officers of Great Britain, William Mason
• Oeuvres, Jean Louis Guez de Balzac
• Othello, William Shakespeare
• Paradise Lost, John Milton
• Parliamentary History of England, from 1066 to 1803, William Cobbett
• Poems, John Milton
• Poems on Several Subjects, James Beattie
• Poems on Sundry Occasions, James Woodhouse
• Poems, Consisting Chiefly of Translations from the Asiatick Languages, Wiilam Jones
• R'flexions Critiques sur la Po'sie et sur la Peinture, Jean-Baptiste Dubos
• Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, Thomas Percy
• Scripture Politics: Ulster Presbyterians and Irish Radicalism in the Late Eighteenth Century, I.R McBride
• Sermons on Several Subjects, Beilby Porteus
• Sketches of the History of Man, Henry Home
• Such Constant Affectionate Care: Lady Charlotte Finch, Royal Governess and the Children of George III, Jill Shefrin
• Texas Studies in Literature and Language, 12-4, Robert Eberwein
• The Adventures of Telemachus, Francois Fenelon
• The Beau Monde: Fashionable Society in Georgian London, Hannah Greig
• The Bible
• The Castle of Indolence, James Thomson
• The Complaint: Or, Night Thoughts, on Life, Death and Immortality, Edward Young
• The Correspondence of James Beattie, James Beattie
• The Country Seat; Or, Evenings Entertainments. Translated from the Spanish, XXXXX XXXXX
• The Early Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney, Frances Burney
• The Evidence of the Christian Religion Briefly and Plainly Stated, James Beattie
• The Family Shakespeare, Thomas Bowdler
• The Hilliad, Christopher Smart
• The Histories, Herodotus
• The History of Great Britain, Robert Henry
• The History of Gustavus Ericson, King of Sweden, Sarah Scott
• The History of Mecklenburg, from the First Settlement of the Vandals in that Country to the Present Time, Sarah Scott
• The History of Taxation, from the Year 1763, to the End of last Session, Edmund Burke
• The Iliad, Homer
• The Journal of a Tour of the Hebrides, James Boswell
• The Letters of Mrs Elizabeth Montagu, Elizabeth Montagu
• The Letters of Sarah Scott, Sarah Scott
• The Life of Samuel Johnson, L.L.D, James Boswell
• The Making of Modern Intellectual Property Law, Brad Sherman
• The Minstrel or the Progress of Genius, James Beattie
• The Minstrel, in Two Books...with some other poems, James Beattie
• The Miscellaneous Works of John Dryden, John Dryden
• The New Bath Guide, Christopher Anstey
• The Odyssey, Homer
• The Pantiles: A Small Corner of England, a Huge Chunk of History
• The Parliamentary History of England, George Lyttelton
• The Philadelphia Campaign: June 1777-July 1778, David G. Martin
• The Poems and Miscellaneous Compositions of Paul Whitehead, William Whitehead
• The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, Alexander Pope
• The Poetical Works of William Shenstone, William Shenstone
• The Seasons, A hymn, A poem to the Memory of Sir Isaac Newton, and Britannia, a Poem, James Thomson
• The Spirit of the Gospel, a Spirit Neither of Superstition nor of Enthusiasm, George Campbell
• The Strange Case of Lord Pigot, Sudip Battacharya
• The Success of the First Publishers of the Gospel a Proof of its Truth, George Campbell
• The Testament of Paris: A Masque, William Congreve
• The Town and Country Magazine, Thomas Holcroft
• The Tragedies of Aeschylus Translated, Aeschylus
• The Universal Songster; or the Museum of Mirth, Thomas Hudson
• The Works of Alexander Pope, Alexander Pope
• The Works of Edmund Spenser, Edmund Spenser
• The Works of Jonathan Swift, Jonathan Swift
• The Works of Samuel Johnson, Samuel Johnson
• The Works of the English Poets, John Sheffield
• The Works of Virgil, Translated into English Verse, John Dryden
• Thraliana: The Diary of Mrs. Hester Lynch Thrale (later Mrs. Piozzi), Hester Thrale
• Two Sermons Preached at the Chapel Royal St James's, Beilby Porteus
• Works, Volume the First, Containing The Seasons, James Thomson
• Elizabeth Montagu to Sarah Scott, 10 August [1788] [MO 6171], Elizabeth Montagu
• Isaiah
• John
• Philippians
• Proverbs

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Please note that all dates and location information are provisional, initially taken from the library and archive catalogues. As our section editors continue to work through the material we will update our database and the changes will be reflected across the edition.

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