300 years ago, in April 1721, a smallpox epidemic was raging in
England. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu knew that she could save her
3-year-old daughter using the process of inoculation. She had
witnessed this at first hand in Turkey, while she was living there
as the wife of the British ambassador. She also knew that by
inoculating - making her daughter the first person protected in the
West - she would face opposition from doctors, politicians and
clerics. Her courageous action eventually led to the eradication of
smallpox and the prevention of millions of deaths. But Mary was
more than a scientific campaigner. She mixed with the greatest
politicians, writers, artists and thinkers of her day. She was also
an important early feminist, writing powerfully and provocatively
about the position of women. She was best friends with the poet
Alexander Pope. They collaborated on a series of poems, which made
her into a household name, an 'It Girl'. But their friendship
turned sour and he used his pen to vilify her publicly.
Aristocratic by birth, Mary chose to elope with Edward Wortley
Montagu, whom she knew she did not love, so as to avoid being
forced into marrying someone else. In middle age, her marriage
stale, she fell for someone young enough to be her son - and,
unknown to her, bisexual. She set off on a new life with him
abroad. When this relationship failed, she stayed on in Europe,
narrowly escaping the coercive control of an Italian conman. After
twenty-two years abroad, she returned home to London to die. The
son-in-law she had dismissed as a young man had meanwhile become
Prime Minister.
General
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