Whether describing the Turkish baths in Sofia or the London social scene, negotiating her marriage settlement or declaring her passion for a young Italian, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762) wrote some of the liveliest letters in the English language.<BR>Ranging over everything from gossip to politics, science to literature, they reveal very different aspects of her personality to her husband, sister and female circle, to her beloved daughter and her errant son. The famous Embassy Letters from Constantinople were designed for publication, yet most are vividly personal. Several letters in this volume have never before appeared in print (one full of exuberant chamber-pot humour and another mocking men as 'vile inconstant toads'). In this superb selection, Isobel Grundy has included examples from every significant correspondence so as to do full justice 'to Montagu the writer, thinker and feminist, and to Lady Mary the friend and family member, the idealistic girl and sardonic old woman'.