Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Mary Howitt
-
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.
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...
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
Fictionalization
Harriet Martineau
Mary Russell Mitford
wrote disapprovingly of HM
's claims: I see no good in these experiments.
Mitford, Mary Russell. The Life of Mary Russell Mitford: Told by Herself in Letters To Her Friends. Editor L’Estrange, Alfred Guy Kingham, Harper and Brothers.
2: 281
Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna
's pamphlet Mesmerism: A Letter to Miss Martineau, argued that if the account...
Family and Intimate relationships
Charlotte Mew
Young Charlotte developed an adolescent crush on her headmistress, Lucy Harrison
, who was a niece of writer Mary Howitt
, a charismatic Quaker, and a scholar of English literature.
Warner, Val. “New Light on Charlotte Mew”. PN Review, Vol.
AMH
's mother, Mary Howitt
, became a well-known and much-loved writer in many genres, particularly for children.
Family and Intimate relationships
Dinah Mulock Craik
DMC
adopted her daughter, who had been abandoned, from a parish workhouse. Mary Howitt
wrote a feeling account of the first discovery of the baby lying on a builders' sand-heap at 5 a.m. on the...
Education
Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
Mary Howitt
, a friend of the Smith family, wrote approvingly of Benjamin Leigh Smith's unorthodox methods of childrearing: Objecting to schools he keeps his children at home, and their knowledge is gained by reading...
Dedications
Anna Mary Howitt
She wrote a warmly affectionate dedication to her parents, William
and Mary Howitt
. A US edition appeared the following year; a second edition was dated 1880.
Herstein, Sheila R. A Mid-Victorian Feminist: Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon. Yale University Press.
97
Birth
Anna Mary Howitt
AMH
was born, the first child of writers Mary
and William Howitt
to be delivered alive, though Mary had been four times pregnant since her marriage in 1821.
Dunicliff, Joy. Mary Howitt: Another Lost Victorian Writer. Excalibur Press of London.
95
Anthologization
Barbara Hofland
BH
seems to have remained saleable for a long time, since The Gift of Friendship . . . with contributions by . . . Mrs. Hofland appeared as late as 1877. Others included were Mary Howitt
Anthologization
Elizabeth Gaskell
EG
first reached print alone when her gothic sketch Clopton Hall was included in Mary
and William Howitt
's Visits to Remarkable Places.
Uglow, Jennifer S. Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories. Faber and Faber.
37
The Athenaeum Index of Reviews and Reviewers: 1830-1870. http://replay.web.archive.org/20070714065452/http://www.soi.city.ac.uk/~asp/v2/home.html.
