So much ink has already been spilt in discussing the relationship between Alexander Pope and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu that one may very well hesitate before adding his jot. Yet the interaction of these two uncomfortably brilliant personalities is of exceptional interest both for their psychological drama and for the literature they wrote because of each other. As drama their relationship may be divided into three acts: friendship, estrangement, and enmity. Unfortunately, with the sparse documentation that survives, the action must be patiently reconstructed from fragmentary clues. Since both chief actors had complex, if not crafty minds, their motives are not simple, and must be carefully and sceptically determined. To favor either Lady Mary or Pope is to distort their drama; one must try instead to judge impartially on the basis of the facts that remain. At present, with valuable new data added to a fresh appraisal of the old, an account may be given which is less equivocal and more credible.