Too clever for her own good

‘I am sorry to say that the generality of women who have excelled in wit have failed in chastity,’ wrote Elizabeth Montagu in 1750, after looking over the memoirs of her contemporary, the witty Mrs Pilkington. Mrs Montagu, learned, respectable and rich, curled her lip at poor Laetitia Pilkington, who started writing for pure pleasure but was then forced to use her pen to keep afloat in a harsh world. She died soon after Mrs Montagu’s comment, and her reputation remained dubious. In the old DNB she was described as an adventuress. But in the 1920s Virginia Woolf devoted a brilliant essay to her, and her memoirs were edited by Iris Barry, who found ‘something heroic and indomitable in her silliness’ and saw that ‘in a queer, outlandish fashion she preserved the honour of womanhood’. The new DNB has made amends, and now Norma Clarke has written her biography.