Mary Wortley Montagu's education was divided between a governess and the use of the library at the family property Thoresby Hall. According to Lady Mary, the governess gave her "one of the worst [educations] in the world" by teaching Lady Mary "superstitious tales and false notions".[11] To supplement the instruction of a despised governess, Lady Mary used the well-furnished library to "steal" her education by hiding in the library, between 10am and 2pm, and "every afternoon from four to eight".[12] She taught herself Latin, a language usually reserved for men at the time. She secretly got a hold of a "Latin dictionary and grammar" and by the age of thirteen, her handling with the language was on par to most men.[13] Furthermore, she was also a voracious reader. She jotted the list of characters and titles she read into a notebook.[11] Some of the works she read included "plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, Dryden, Rowe, Lee, Otway" and French and English romances, including "Grand Cyrus, Pharamond, Almahide, and Parthenissa."[11] By 1705, at the age of fourteen or fifteen, Mary Pierrepont had written two albums entitled "Poems, Songs &c" filled with poetry, a brief epistolary novel, and a prose-and-verse romance modelled after Aphra Behn's Voyage to the Isle of Love (1684).[11] She also corresponded with two bishops, Thomas Tenison and Gilbert Burnet, who supplemented the instruction of the governess. Overall, Mary impressed her father, who was not a scholar, with her progress.[13]
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