Louisa Stuart Costello (1799-1870) was a poet and artist who supported her family with her paintings. As well as writing a number of historical novels, Costello researched and wrote the biographies of many prominent women, using their letters and diaries to tell their extraordinary stories. This fourth volume chronicles the lives of two women; politician and courtier Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, and poet and satirist Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, was the close confidante of Queen Anne, and her memoirs offer a detailed picture of the rise and decline of the long friendship between two women at the centre of political life. Lady Mary was an intrepid traveller, an early advocate of inoculation for smallpox, and a feminist poet who had a bitter feud with Alexander Pope. For more information on this author, see http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=costlo