Writer, Traveller · Taurus · born May 15, 1689 in London, England

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was an English writer whose letters from the Ottoman Empire broke the conventions of travel writing by describing a society she admired rather than pitied. She observed smallpox inoculation in Constantinople and championed the practice in Britain decades before Jenner, against considerable medical resistance.

Their Taurus side

Aries again: she acted on the evidence in front of her while the establishment was still deciding whether to look.

Notable works

• The Turkish Embassy Letters
• Court Poems
• Six Town Eclogues

Achievements

• Introduced smallpox inoculation to Britain
• The Turkish Embassy Letters, a landmark of travel writing
• Among the first Englishwomen to write publicly about Ottoman society
• An early and pointed critic of the marriage laws of her day

In their words

• “Civility costs nothing and buys everything.”
• “People are never so near playing the fool as when they think themselves wise.”

Birth chart facts

• Sun sign: Taurus
• Chinese zodiac: Earth Snake
• Life path number: 8 — The Powerhouse
• Born on a Sunday

Taurus compatibility

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