Wealth & Money Quote by Mary Wortley Montagu

"Writers of novels and romance in general bring a double loss to their readers; robbing them of their time and money; representing men, manners, and things, that never have been, or are likely to be"

Mary Wortley Montagu, Writer

About this Quote

A novel, in Montagu's telling, is a genteel mugging: it picks your pocket twice, then flatters you for enjoying it. The phrasing is surgical. "Double loss" sounds like bookkeeping, not moral panic, which is precisely the move. She frames reading romance as bad accounting - a waste of two scarce resources in an emerging consumer culture where leisure and spending are becoming habits rather than privileges.

The real blade is in her last clause: romances "represent men, manners, and things" that never have been. Montagu isn't merely accusing fiction of lying; she's accusing it of counterfeiting social knowledge. In an era when women were policed through "manners" and reputation, the novel's fantasy versions of courtship, virtue, and reward could function like a dangerous informal curriculum. Read enough stories where desire is destiny and good taste saves you, and you may start expecting life to obey narrative justice. Montagu's complaint is less about imagination than about credibility - fiction teaching readers to misread the world.

There's also a class-and-gender subtext. "Romance" was often coded feminine, private, and unserious; public writing, politics, and "things as they are" were coded masculine and consequential. Montagu, a woman who moved in elite political and literary circles, weaponizes that hierarchy while also revealing her anxiety about it: she knows stories shape behavior. Her cynicism is modern in that way. She isn't scared of books; she's scared of the kind of person certain books manufacture.

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Mary Wortley Montagu

Mary Wortley Montagu (May 26, 1689 - August 21, 1762) was a Writer from England.

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