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.
This volume included contributions by herself, Bessie Rayner Parkes
, and Mary Howitt
, as well as two poems by the Rossettis: Christina
's A Royal Princess and Dante Gabriel
's Sudden Light. The...
Literary responses
Eliza Cook
An 1848 preface to a US edition of her poems ranked EC
's popularity almost as high as that of Felicia Hemans
or Caroline Norton
. It characterises her work in terms of emotion and...
Friends, Associates
Mary Cowden Clarke
In addition to meeting Dickens
as a result of her theatrical activities, MCC
and her husband met William Hazlitt
through a shared duty of theatre reviewing, and she became friends with Mary Howitt
, and...
Anthologization
Mary Cowden Clarke
In 1848 MCC
may have contributed two pieces to A Book of Stories for Young People, along with Mary Howitt
and Anna Maria Hall
. But Richard D. Altick
believes the stories The Princess...
Intertextuality and Influence
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Byron
and Wordsworth
were important poetic influences. Books that Elizabeth Barrett owned and kept until her death included Philip James Bailey
's Festus, A Poem, a major text of the spasmodic school, L. E. L.
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...
Literary responses
Caroline Bowles
The Gentleman's Magazine's obituary for Bowles recalled that Chapters on Churchyardscontributed materially to establish her literary reputation and also showed powers of narrative fitting her for a popular and profitable branch of composition...
Publishing
Caroline Bowles
In April 1835 CB
's review of Mary Howitt
's The Seven Temptations appeared in Blackwood's.
Mudge, Bradford Keyes, editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 116. Gale Research.
Herstein, Sheila R. A Mid-Victorian Feminist: Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon. Yale University Press.
97
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...
Herstein, Sheila R. A Mid-Victorian Feminist: Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon. Yale University Press.
58, 71
politics
Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
At the meeting the female members of the first Married Women's Property Committee
confirmed the text of BLSB
's parliamentary petition and planned for a signature crusade and then for the presentation of the petition...
Occupation
Hans Christian Andersen
At the age of eleven, HCA
began working in factories; he later became an apprentice shoemaker. Although trained as an actor and singer, he is best known for his work as a playwright, novelist, and...
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
