'An author in form': Women writers, print publication, and Elizabeth Montagu's Dialogues of the Dead

Abstract

Eighteenth-century women writers repeatedly expressed resistance to the public exposure of print publication. The first publication of the bluestocking intellectual Elizabeth Montagu, three satirical dialogues included in George Lyttelton's Dialogues of the Dead (1760), exemplifies this problem. Montagu used a variety of techniques to distance herself from the stigma of print: sociable composition, coterie criticism, disavowal of authorship, and anonymous publication. In her correspondence, Montagu explored an important but overlooked account of "the author in form," a concept developed by Shaftesbury in his Characteristicks (1714) to reconcile the aristocratic practice of scribal publication to commercial print publication