Lady Mary's letters have so often been consigned to the area of fringe classics and faded belles lettres that it is a jolt to be reminded how lively and witty and well observed they are, what an intelligent and spirited ("emancipated") woman she was, and how wide ranging were her interests and contacts. Her marriage to a diplomat brought her to Constantinople, where she saw the Ottoman Empire from close range, and it was there that she learned the technique of smallpox inoculation which she brought back to England. A talented writer herself, she was friendly with many or most of the English writers at the time including Pope, with whom she had a spectacular and vicious quarrel which lasted until his death. In late middle age she fell in love with a much younger Italian savant, Algarotti, but he fled from her and she spent most of her later years rather restlessly on the Continent. These letters are to English literature what Mme de Sevigne's are to French.