Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Mary Russell Mitford
-
Standard Name: Mitford, Mary Russell
Birth Name: Mary Russell Mitford
MRM
, poet, playwright, editor, letter-writer, memoirist, and—in just one work—novelist, is best known for her sketches of rural life, especially those in the successive volumes of Our Village (whose first appeared in 1824). Her greatest success came when, under the pressure of her father's inexhaustible capacity for running up debt, she turned from the respected genres of poetry and plays to work at something more popular and remunerative.
After moving into the home of Weekly Dispatch editor James Harmer
, she became involved in a scandal (large enough to have been known to Elizabeth Barrett Browning
, who wrote of it to Mary Russell Mitford
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
Anna Jane Vardill
While she lived in London AJV
moved in culturally active circles. She later described the poet Eleanor Anne Porden
(who lived not far away) as her dear friend, and was one of those who...
Friends, Associates
Barbarina Brand, Baroness Dacre
Her many literary friendships, maintained in part by correspondence, included those with Joanna Baillie
and Mary Russell Mitford
(who first met each other in her drawing-room), Catherine Fanshawe
, and Mary Tighe
(with whom she...
Friends, Associates
Mary Howitt
In Nottingham MH
met L. E. L.
and perhaps Elizabeth Fry
. She was visited by Mary
and Dora Wordsworth
(wife and daughter of the poet), and later she and her husband stayed with the...
Friends, Associates
Henrietta Euphemia Tindal
Friends with whom she maintained contact by correspondence included her neighbour Mary Russell Mitford
, who commented to Elizabeth Barrett Browning
that HET
had been wrong in her theory about the authorship of Jane Eyre...
Friends, Associates
Hester Lynch Piozzi
Mary Russell Mitford
(who did not know HLP
) later praised her. HLP had met Mitford's teacher the future writer Frances Arabella Rowden
, in Wales while Rowden struggled as a neglected, uncared for
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: 244
Friends, Associates
Eleanor Anne Porden
EAP
met Mary Russell Mitford
in summer 1822 at the London house of Mrs Vardill: presumably the mother of the Romantic poet Anna Jane Vardill
.
L’Estrange, Alfred Guy Kingham, editor. The Friendships of Mary Russell Mitford as Recorded in Letters from Her Literary Correspondents. Hurst and Blackett.
1: 121
Vardill was a friend and associate from...
Friends, Associates
Mary Ann Browne
MAB
had already met L. E. L.
and Mary Russell Mitford
.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
She now met the Chorley
family, Shelton Mackenzie
of the Dublin University Magazine, and other figures in Liverpool literary society. She presumably...
HM
's social circle vastly expanded at this time until she knew virtually all the prominent people, particularly the political men, of her day. As she recorded in her Autobiography, however, she refused to...
Friends, Associates
Barbara Hofland
BH
retained at least one life-long friendship from her Sheffield or Attercliffe days: with the poet and novelist Sarah Pearson
, who had been her neighbour there. Pearson's will charged Hofland with the task of...
Friends, Associates
Frances Trollope
Frances's earliest friendships were forged with intelligent young women like herself, such as Marianne Gabell
, a headmaster's daughter. She also socialized with older women, including Mrs George Mitford
, the mother of Mary Russell Mitford
Friends, Associates
Henry Peter, Baron Brougham
Brougham had a number of friends among women writers. He was at primary school in Edinburgh with Susan Ferrier
(who, however, declined to acknowledge him later, probably for political reasons). His political work brought him...
Friends, Associates
Frances Arabella Rowden
Mitford
introduced St Quintin
and his wife
to her life-story as a well-born, well-educated, and well-looking French emigrant, and a woman whom she thought French, good-natured, red-faced . . . much muffled up in shawls...
Timeline
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Texts
Mitford, Mary Russell. The Works of Mary Russell Mitford, Prose and Verse. James Crissy, 1841.
Mitford, Mary Russell. Watlington Hill. A. J. Valpy, 1812.