Mary Monck (1677–1715)

Mary Monck, née Molesworth, was born to an Anglo-Irish family. Her parents were Robert Molesworth, 1st Viscount Molesworth, and his wife Letitia. She grew up to be a celebrated beauty and married George Monck, a Dublin gentleman with whom she had three children. She studied Latin, Italian, and Spanish, and read widely in English literature. She translated several works from Italian to English. She wrote poetry for her own satisfaction rather than for public view. However, some of her poems were discovered and published shortly after her death by her father under the title Marinda: Poems and Translations upon Several Occasions (1716). On her deathbed, she wrote a touching poem to her husband, which was not included in this book, but was printed in the 1755 anthology Poems by Eminent Ladies and became well-known.