Folger Shakespeare Library
CELM

Mary, Lady Chudleigh

1656–1710

Introduction

Mary, Lady Chudleigh (née Lee), published her verses and essays in The Ladies Defence (London, 1701), in Poems on Several Occasions (London, 1703, reprinted several times until 1750), and in Essays upon Several Subjects in Prose and Verse (London, 1710). Although at least some of the works in these publications are likely to have had previous limited manuscript circulation among her family and social circle, no extant examples of such manuscripts have been recorded hitherto. Only a few probably later copies of certain poems have come to light at present (ChM 1-4).

Lost Manuscripts

Also unknown are the manuscripts left by her which, according to George Ballard in his account of Lady Chudleigh (Bodleian, MS Ballard 74), included two tragedies, two operas, a masque, some of Lucian's dialogues done into verse, Satyrical Reflections on Saqualio, in imitation of one of Lucian's dialogues, and several short poems on various occasions (Ezell, p. xxxv).

Letters

Her only other recorded manuscript remains are a few letters now in the Bodleian and British Libraries (ChM 5-7).

Abbreviations

Ezell
The Poems and Prose of Mary, Lady Chudleigh, ed. Margaret Ezell (Oxford & New York, 1993).

Verse

The Elevation ('O how ambitious is my Soul')

First published in Poems on Several Occasions (London, 1703). Ezell, p. 78.

ChM 1

Copy, headed The Elevation, by Lady Chudly.

A quarto composite verse miscellany, in one or possibly two hands, 56 pages (including blanks), in 19th-century boards.

Early-mid-18th century

Formerly among the papers of the Fairfax family, of Leeds Castle, Kent. Fairfax sale at Leeds Castle, 1843, to Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bt (1792-1872), book and manuscript collector: Phillipps MS 11141. 1898 Phillipps sale, lot 479, to W. A. Lindsay. His sale London, 14 February 1927, lot 671, to Dobell. Dobell & Radford's sale catalogue The Ingatherer, No. 11 (1930), item 209.

University of Chicago (MS 554 p. 16)
To the Ladies ('Wife and Servant are the same')

First published in Poems on Several Occasions (London, 1703). Ezell, pp. 83-4.

ChM 2

Copy, in an 18th-century hand.

This MS recorded in Ezell, p. cviii.

A quarto volume of 60 poems by Henry King (plus one by Henry Reynolds), in a single neat hand, that of Thomas Manne's imitator, 46 leaves (including a few blank pages).

c.1635-6 [and some later additions]

Some 18th-century additions including notes in French, some verse and the inscriptions (f. 3r) Henry Dottin His Book and Elie Dottin Her Book. Later owned by Edmond Malone (1741-1812), literary scholar, biographer and book collector.

Cited in IELM, II.i (1987), as the Malone MS: KiH Δ 3. Discussed by Margaret Crum in The Library, 5th Ser. 16 (1961), 121-32. Described in Sir Geoffrey Keynes, A Bibliography of Henry King D.D. Bishop of Chichester (London, 1977), pp. 91-3 (with a facsimile of f. 17v: see KiH 321) and in Mary Hobbs's thesis (see Rosemary Williams, Stoughton MS).

ChM 3 Early-mid-18th century

Copy, inscribed in the volume.

This MS recorded in Ezell, pp. xvii-xviii.

A printed exemplum of the Shakespeare First Folio (London, 1623).

Once owned by Elizabeth Brockett.

The Folger Shakespeare Library, Printed books (STC 22273, No. 23 fourth flyleaf verso)
The Wish ('Would but indulgent Fortune send')

First published in Poems on Several Occasions (London, 1703). Ezell, p. 77.

ChM 4

Copy, headed Lady Chudleighs poem the wish, on one side of a single quarto leaf.

Early 18th century
Dr Williams's Library (MS 12. 11 (25))

Letters

Letter(s)
*ChM 7 1710
Autograph

Autograph letter signed by Lady Chudleigh, to the Electress Sophia, from Exeter, 8 October 1710.

A folio composite volume of correspondence and papers of John Robethon, private secretary to William III and George I, for 1707-11, 472 leaves.

Hanover Papers Vol. II.

The British Library: Stowe MSS (Stowe MS 223 f. 398r)

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