Mary Howitt

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Standard Name: Howitt, Mary
Birth Name: Mary Botham
Married Name: Mary Howitt
Pseudonym: Wilfreda
Between them, Mary Howitt and her husband William wrote and published over 180 books. Hers alone, at her death, occupied forty pages of the British Museum printed catalogue.
Dunicliff, Joy. Mary Howitt: Another Lost Victorian Writer. Excalibur Press of London.
1, 261
Bearing the expenses of a large family, they needed to harness their literary productivity to earning potential.
Dunicliff, Joy. Mary Howitt: Another Lost Victorian Writer. Excalibur Press of London.
1, 134-5
As an opportunistic writer in several low-status, low-cost genres, accustomed to placing the same work in several successive venues, MH left a complex, even confusing bibliography, not yet reduced to order by scholars.
Black and white, head-and-shoulders photograph of the aged Mary Howitt. She is dressed in black: a dark hood covers her grey hair and white cap; her black, patterned cloak, tied with dark ribbons, covers a dark dress buttoned in front. Her eyes are cast down.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Friends, Associates Elizabeth Gaskell
One happy result of this expansion of her sphere was the cementing of her friendship with Mary and William Howitt .
Uglow, Jennifer S. Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories. Faber and Faber.
219
Friends, Associates Elizabeth Gaskell
She also liked to escape from Manchester when she was able to. She spent the evening of Christmas 1850 at William and Mary Howitt 's home in London swapping ghost stories with them and Eliza Meteyard .
Mitchell, Sally. The Fallen Angel: Chastity, Class and Women’s Reading 1835-1880. Bowling Green State University Popular Press.
32
Friends, Associates Grace Aguilar
Around this time her acquaintance deepened with Camilla Crosland .
Crosland, Camilla. Landmarks of a Literary Life, 1820-1892. Charles Scribner’s Sons.
174
Other Christian literary friends included Felicia Hemans , Mary Howitt , and Anna Maria Hall .
Galchinsky, Michael. The Origin of the Modern Jewish Woman Writer. Wayne State University Press.
145
Friends, Associates Eliza Meteyard
She became connected through her writing to Douglas Jerrold , Mary and William Howitt , and Harriet Martineau .
Lightbown, Ronald W., and Eliza Meteyard. “Introduction”. The Life of Josiah Wedgwood, Cornmarket Press.
The difficulties of social life for unattached women are visible in her regret and anxiety over...
Friends, Associates Camilla Crosland
CC 's friends and acquaintances were varying and numerous. In her youth the radical politician John Cartwright was a neighbour. Her literary work as an adult led to the formation of a number of lasting...
Friends, Associates Hans Christian Andersen
HCA dedicated his book A Poet's Day Dreams to Charles Dickens , whom he visited in 1857. He also, while visiting England, stayed with William and Mary Howitt at The Elms, Lower Clapton. Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Friends, Associates Christina Rossetti
Around this time she became aware of her brother Dante Gabriel 's involvement with Elizabeth Siddal , although she and Siddal met only in 1854 and were never intimate friends. Close family friends of Christina...
Friends, Associates Anna Maria Hall
One of AMH 's closest friends was the actress Helen Faucit , later Lady Martin. Though socially conservative in her attitudes, she was apparently more ready than her husband to achieve friendly relations with those...
Friends, Associates Maria Jane Jewsbury
Although they had been corresponding by letter for some time, this holiday was the first time the two writers met in person. MJJ was soon accepted into Hemans ' social circle and become friends with...
Friends, Associates Matilda Hays
By her twenties, MH was well-acquainted with several prominent figures in England's social, political, and literary scene. Her circle included Mary Howitt , Eliza Meteyard , William Charles Macready , Samuel Laurence , Geraldine Jewsbury
Friends, Associates Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
BLSB 's other prominent women friends included Adelaide Procter , Anna Mary Howitt (Mary 's daughter), and Anna Brownell Jameson .
Herstein, Sheila R. A Mid-Victorian Feminist: Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon. Yale University Press.
58, 71
Friends, Associates Elizabeth Siddal
ES had met some female associates of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood : artists Anna Mary Howitt (daughter of Mary Howitt ) and Barbara Leigh Smith (later Bodichon), as well as Bessie Rayner Parkes .
Friends, Associates Sarah Stickney Ellis
Among her few writing friends were Mary Howitt and her relations by marriage Mary and Anna Sewell . She greatly admired without personally knowing Elizabeth Fry , and felt a personal connection to Charlotte Brontë
Friends, Associates Caroline Bowles
CB 's dealings with Blackwood's led to a positive working relationship with editor John Wilson . She also maintained a long correspondence with Anna Eliza Bray and (in later years) a shorter one with poet...
Friends, Associates Ralph Waldo Emerson
As a result of his lecture tours, he became one of the most prominent American intellectuals in Britain, and was personally connected to numerous writers including Jane Carlyle and Mary Howitt .

Timeline

No timeline events available.

Texts

Howitt, William, and Mary Howitt. The Literature and Romance of Northern Europe. Colburn, 1852.
Bremer, Fredrika. The Neighbours. Translator Howitt, Mary, Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1842.
Bremer, Fredrika. The President’s Daughters. Translator Howitt, Mary, Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1843.
Howitt, Mary. The Seven Temptations. R. Bentley, 1834.
Howitt, Mary. Wood Leighton. R. Bentley, 1836.