Mary Russell Mitford

16 December 1787 - 10 January 1855

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.

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Connections

Connections	Author name Sort descending	Excerpt
Residence	Frances Trollope	During the summers, FT travelled like many other English expatriates to the Baths of Lucca. Heineman, Helen. Mrs. Trollope: The Triumphant Feminine in the Nineteenth Century. Ohio University Press. 250 In a letter, Mary Russell Mitford congratulated the nearly seventy-year-old FT on her domestic and social happiness, and...
Literary responses	Frances Trollope	Heineman claims reception was poor in England as well as America because the cultural climate in the former was beginning to resemble that of the latter; because of this, controls on women's behaviour were seen...
Literary responses	Frances Trollope	Soon after its appearance Mary Russell Mitford heard this book reputed as clever, but not agreeable. 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: 168 FT received stern reviews from the Times and The Spectator for representing genteel society as petty and...
Textual Production	Frances Trollope	Some of FT 's letters were published by A. G. K. L'Estrange in The Friendships of Mary Russell Mitford in 1882. L’Estrange, Alfred Guy Kingham, editor. The Friendships of Mary Russell Mitford as Recorded in Letters from Her Literary Correspondents. Hurst and Blackett. 1: 159ff
Literary responses	Frances Trollope	Mary Russell Mitford spoke for the more conventional side of early nineteenth-century opinion when she wrote that in spite of her terrible coarseness, [she] has certainly done two or three marvelously clever things. 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: 316
Intertextuality and Influence	Frances Trollope	FT 's years of literary success were marked by tragedy: she lost two of her children to consumption, and eventually lost a third. Nadel, Ira Bruce, and William E. Fredeman, editors. Dictionary of Literary Biography 21. Gale Research. 21: 324 Heineman, Helen. Mrs. Trollope: The Triumphant Feminine in the Nineteenth Century. Ohio University Press. 135 However, her writing brought her into a supportive network...
Occupation	Sarah Tytler	As regards the typical feminine curriculum, ST resented the tradition of mandatory music teaching—of the piano—to young women, and the slight to other branches of education in the extravagant favour shown to one branch. Tytler, Sarah. Three Generations. J. Murray. 235-6
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...
Textual Features	Dorothy Wellesley	DW 's selection, though, demonstrates a serious interest in women's literary and feminist history. Of the selections whose authors can be identified, almost half are women. Though Marguerite, Lady Blessington , doyenne of the albums...
Literary responses	Mary Wollstonecraft	MW 's posthumous vilification was followed by a long period during which her name was considered barely fit to be mentioned. Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna borrowed her title The Wrongs of Woman in 1843; Maria Jane Jewsbury

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