The Russian Journals of Martha and Catherine Wilmot: Being an Account by Two Irish Ladies of Their Adventures in Russia as Guests of the Celebrated Princess Dashkaw, Containing Vivid Descriptions of Contemporary Court Life and Society, and Lively Anecdot…

xxvi, 423 pp. Edited, with an introduction and notes, by the Marchioness of Londonderry and H.M. Hyde. Martha Wilmot (1775 - 18 December 1873) was an Irish traveller and diarist. Martha Wilmot was born in 1775 in Glanmire, County Cork. Her parents were Edward and Martha Wilmot (née Moore). She had five sisters and three brothers. Her father was from Derbyshire, England, having served as a captain of the 40th Regiment of Foot, and port surveyor of the revenue board in Cork and Drogheda. Wilmot was educated at home, and following the death of a brother in 1802, her cousin Catherine Hamilton urged her to visit her brother's friend, the Princess Dashkova of Russia. Yekaterina Romanovna Vorontsova (28 March 1743 - 15 January 1810), later Princess Dashkova, was an influential noblewoman, a major figure of the Russian Enlightenment and a close friend of Empress Catherine the Great. She was part of the coup d'état that placed Catherine on the throne, the first woman in the world to head a national academy of sciences, the first woman in Europe to hold a government office and the president of the Russian Academy, which she helped found. She also published prolifically, with original and translated works on many subjects, and was invited by Benjamin Franklin to become the first female member of the American Philosophical Society.