On location with A Woman of Opinion and Sean Lusk

Submitted: 14th July 2024

London, Italy and Yorkshire with Sean Lusk

A very interesting trail today. Author Sean Lusk is here with the fascinating journey of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. A woman who longs for adventure, freedom and love, believing that only by truly living can she ever escape the stalking crow of Death…

A Woman of Opinion Sean Lusk

Map of locations in Woman of Opinion

I wrote this novel having become hopelessly obsessed with Mary. I had found her Turkish Embassy Letters as part of my research for my first novel, The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley.

Mary’s voice in those letters became the inspiration for the character of Aunt Frances in that novel – outspoken, free-spirited, open-minded, and yet often infuriating her contemporaries.

Cavendish Square, London – Mary’s home for most of the 1720s and 1730s.

Map of locations in Woman of Opinion

As I began to think about my second novel, I soon devouring all Mary’s published work and several notable biographies. In addition, I went through her unpublished letters and notes held in archives. As a result, I realised how truly remarkable her life had been#. However, I also how unjust it was that – like so many notable women – she has been largely forgotten.

York, Middlethorpe

Map of locations in Woman of Opinion

Mary has a good claim to be one of the earliest women travel writers. She wrote her letters intending them for publication. They were written from many locations in Europe and Turkey over a period of forty years. She met kings, queens and emperors, as well as ordinary people from all walks of life. As a result, her observations are written with startling clarity as she challenged long-held prejudices.

When her Turkish Embassy Letters were finally published shortly after her death in 1762 copies sold in their thousands, and it has never been out of print since. Voltaire called Mary ‘a woman for all the world.’

Lovere, Italy – It is the only town in the world that today has a street named for her.

Map of locations in Woman of Opinion

Why a novel? Mary kept a diary all her life. In this diary, she documented her loves and fears, her friendships (and enmities) with almost every major figure of the first half of the eighteenth century. She wrote about many things. Her diaries are littered with news on her endless battles for women’s rights, and her fervent belief in the need for medical reform. She also wrote a lot about her travels across Europe and beyond.

However, her daughter, Mary Stuart, Countess of Bute, felt scandalised by her mother’s notoriety. Despite Mary’s dying wish that her diaries be published, her daughter burnt them. Sadly, they are lost to us. Perhaps every historical novelist looks for such a gap in the past, where imagination must complete what the record cannot. That gap proved just too tempting for me.

Gottolengo, Brescia – Mary settled in this small village in 1746

Map of locations in Woman of Opinion

Despite Mary being a woman born into privilege long ago, her attitudes and beliefs seem to me strikingly relevant for our age. Mary was dismayed by war and argued for peace. she wanted to see universal health care and education for girls as well as boys. Furthermore, she ridiculed prejudice and wrote to dispel ignorance about Islam. Above all, she used her considerable wit and humour to press her case.