Bluestocking in the North: Elizabeth Montagu, Education and the Archive

伊丽莎白·罗宾逊·蒙塔古在出版了《论莎士比亚的作品与天才》（1769）一书后声名鹊起，她在书中为莎士比亚作品的价值辩护，反对伏尔泰的批评。她的这本广受欢迎的著作可以作为了解蒙塔古教育哲学的一把钥匙。然而，正是她的手稿遗产真正体现了她对教育的未经过滤和未经编辑的看法。蒙塔古是一位多产的通讯员，她的4000多封信仍然保存在世界各地的各种档案馆和个人收藏中。她的信件被认为是“从18世纪幸存下来的最重要的收藏品”之一。她经常写信给18世纪的主要知识分子，如埃德蒙·伯克和大卫·加里克，同时也与蓝袜党的成员广泛通信，包括伊丽莎白·卡特、弗朗西丝·伯尼、玛丽·汉密尔顿等等。伊丽莎白·卡特是蒙塔古最亲密的朋友之一，在多年的时间里，她给蒙塔古写了700多封信，两人在信中交流了他们的生活，从家庭问题到海外政治和希腊神话，涉及方方面面。这些信件被认为是衡量蒙塔古的知识和网络、她的阅读、学习以及她对女性教育的原始女权主义方法的力量的一种手段。但蓝袜圈是一个大都市现象，蒙塔古在管理丈夫的财产方面也需要她的饲养、指导和创业技能，她在那里实践了她的教育理念。

Elizabeth Robinson Montagu rose to notability after her publication of An Essay on the Writings and Genius of Shakespear (1769) in which she defended the value of Shakespeare's writings against the criticisms of Voltaire. Her highly popular publication can be used as a key to Montagu's philosophy on education. However, it is her manuscript legacy which truly speaks to her unfiltered and unedited opinion on education. Montagu was a prolific correspondent, with over 4,000 of her letters still surviving in various archives and personal collections around the world. Her correspondence has been noted as one of the most 'important surviving collections from the eighteenth century' (ODNB). She frequently wrote to leading intellectuals of the eighteenth century such as Edmund Burke and David Garrick, while also corresponding extensively with members of the Bluestockings, including Elizabeth Carter, Frances Burney, Mary Hamilton, and many more. Elizabeth Carter was one of Montagu's closest friends, to whom she sent over 700 letters over the span of many years, and the two exchanged letters about their lives, covering everything from family trouble to overseas politics and Greek mythology. The correspondence has rightly been considered as a means of gauging Montagu's knowledge and networks, her reading, learning, and the strength of her proto-feminist approach to women's education. But the Bluestocking circle was a metropolitan phenomenon, and Montagu's skills of husbandry, mentorship and entrepreneurship were also required to manage her husband's estates, where she put into practice her ideologies of education.