Frances Boscawen

Edmund Burke called Mrs Delany (née Mary Granville, 1700–1788) ‘the highest bred woman in the world, and the woman of fashion of all ages’.Quoted in Ruth Hayden, Mrs Delany and her Flower Collages, 2nd edn (London: British Museum Press, 1992), 129, citing what Dr Johnson heard Edmund Burke say. See also Lady Llanover, ed., The Autobiography and Correspondence of Mary Granville, Mrs Delany, 6 vols (London: Bentley, 1861–2), V, 12. Already recognized in her own times, she continued to attract admirers after Lady Llanover brought out a complete ‘autobiography and correspondence’ in the...

In her seventies, which coincided with the seventies of her century, Mary Delany was known for her gentility, her probity, her artistry, and her longevity This was the decade when she began her botanical paper collages, the high point of her creativity and the work for which she is...