"Lady Mary, quite contrary," she might have been dubbed, for she was frequently in trouble. The Rémond scandal, that will presently be unfolded, was a thing apart; but her witty tongue made her many enemies and cost her many friends. Had the contents of her letters about London society become known at the time, nearly every man's and all women's hands would have been against her. She had, in fact, little that was kind to say about people; when she had, she usually refrained from mentioning it. In this work Lady Mary's letters, either whole or in part, are given only in so far as they have biographical or historical value. At the same time I have, wherever possible, allowed Lady Mary to tell her story, or to give her impressions, in her own words. The quotations have been taken, by kind permission of Messrs. J.M. Dent & Sons, Ltd., from the edition of the letters in their "Everyman Library" (edited by Mr. Ernest Rhys), with an introduction by Mr. R. Brimley Johnson. The first edition of the letters appeared in three volumes in 1763, believed to have been edited by John Cleland. A fourth volume, issued in 1763, is regarded by Sir Leslie Stephen as of doubtful authenticity. James Dallaway, in 1803, brought out an enlarged collection and added to it the poems, and a second edition, with some new letters, appeared fourteen years later. Lady Mary's great-grandson, Lord Wharncliffe, edited the correspondence in 1837, and this, revised by Mr. Moy Thomas, was reprinted in 1861 and again in 1887. There have been published selections from the correspondence by Mr. A.R. Ropes (1892) and by Mr. Hannaford Bennett (1923). The principal authorities for the life of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu are the Memoirs of James Dallaway prefixed to an edition of the _Works_ (1803) and the _Introductory Anecdotes_ in a new edition (1837) by Lady Louisa Stuart, the daughter of Lady Bute and the granddaughter of Lady Mary. There is another account of Lady Mary by the late Moy Thomas in revised editions of the letters and writings (1861 and 1887). Sir Leslie Stephen was responsible for the memoir in the _Dictionary of National Biography_. In 1907 appeared _Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and her Times_, by that sound authority on the eighteenth century, "George Paston," who was so fortunate as to discover many scores of letters hitherto unpublished. Other sources of information are to be found in Pope's Correspondence, Spence's _Anecdotes_, Dilke's _Papers of a Critic,_ Cobbetts _Memorials of Twickenham_, the Stuart MSS. at Windsor Castle, the MSS. of the Duke of Beaufort, and the Lindsay MSS. My thanks--though not, perhaps, the thanks of my readers--are especially due to that ripe scholar Mr. Hannaford Bennett, who suggested this work to me. I am indebted to Mr. M.H. Spielmann and other friends and correspondents for information and suggestions. Finally, I must acknowledge the valuable assistance of Mrs. E. Constance Monfrino in the preparation of this biography.