ABSTRACT
Alexander Pope first met Lady Mary Wortley Montagu at the beginning of 1715 when she was already well known in Whig circles as a beauty and a wit. She was by far the most intellectual woman Alexander Pope had encountered. In Alexander Pope's eyes Lady Mary's ability to express herself was a cardinal point in her favour. Impressed as Alexander Pope was by his new friend, he might not have singled her out from a fair number of aristocratic hostesses with whom he flirted, if she had not gone away on 1 August 1716 with her husband Edward Wortley, who had been appointed England's ambassador in Constantinople. No sooner had she left these shores than Alexander Pope recreated her in his mind as an object of courtly love. All the time Alexander Pope was addressing himself to his princesse lontaine life at home was as harassing as ever.
