Dissertation Report for February

This is an image of Elizabeth Montagu from an engraving after Reynolds & it hangs at the National Portrait Gallery in London.
I've set the end of February as my deadline for chapter one, and I'm on schedule I think, but it is slow work. The first chapter is about Elizabeth and her husband Edward. I've written all the historiographical background on 18th century marriage & interpretations of the Montagu marriage. Now I'm working on my own interpretation of the letters between them and that is much more fun! The letters I'm using are from 1742-1763 and are part of the Montagu collection at the Huntington Library in CA. The name of the chapter is "Court vs. Country" and refers to their differing opinions about the monarchy after 1760.
I work everyday on at least something related to my dissertation...after this chapter is done I am going to take a day or two break before diving into chapter two which will be about the friendship between Elizabeth and Lord Lyttelton. LL and Jocebeane have the same birthday -- see post below for an excellent close-up of Lyttelton from a painting by Arthur Devis! There is hardly anything written about Elizabeth Montagu that a general audience might be interested in...I think it would be fun to do a book and EM & the Bluestockings. They are very interesting!