Mary Russell Mitford

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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.
Painting of Mary Russell Mitford by John Lucas, c. 1853, based on another by Benjamin Robert Haydon, 1824, which was disliked for its assertive look. Here an oval frame is painted in; Mitford wears a white ruffled cap around her face, a white collar pinned with a cameo, a grey gown and brown shawl.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Intertextuality and Influence Elizabeth Helme
The Critical reviewed this novel two months after publication. It goes unmentioned by Virgil B. Heltzel in Fair Rosamond. A Study of the Development of a Literary Theme, 1947. Those preceding Helme in treating...
Friends, Associates Felicia Hemans
FH introduced herself to Mary Russell Mitford through a letter praising Our Village for the sense of communion
Hughes, Harriet Browne Owen, and Felicia Hemans. “Memoir of Mrs. Hemans”. The Works of Mrs. Hemans, W. Blackwood, pp. 1-315.
123
with its author that she felt in reading it.
Hughes, Harriet Browne Owen, and Felicia Hemans. “Memoir of Mrs. Hemans”. The Works of Mrs. Hemans, W. Blackwood, pp. 1-315.
122-4
Reception Felicia Hemans
Mary Russell Mitford believed by May 1837 that FH had received a pension from the Crown of £100 a year. In fact, Robert Peel , the prime minister, had in the year of her death...
Literary responses Felicia Hemans
Maria Jane Jewsbury had already begun the idealisation of FH in 1830 with her portrait of Egeria in The History of a Nonchalant: a muse, a grace, a variable child, a dependent woman—the Italy...
Reception Felicia Hemans
As the Victorian period advanced, FH 's popularity with readers held firm, but critics became less enthusiastic. George Gilfillan published a substantial article on her in Tait's Edinburgh Magazine in 1847, placing her first in...
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...
Literary responses Caroline Herschel
In the beginning CH 's reputation was usually judged more as that of a woman and a sister than as that of a scientist. Frances Burney 's admiration and delight was directed at her as...
Leisure and Society Elizabeth Heyrick
In the year 1827 EH 's reading included all of Jane Austen 's completed novels and Mary Russell Mitford 's Our Village.
Beale, Catherine Hutton, editor. Catherine Hutton and Her Friends. Cornish Brothers.
179
Intertextuality and Influence Susan Hill
The setting of this book is an imaginary village called Barley Oxfordshire, based on the village where SH lived. Consciously or not, it follows Mary Russell Mitford and Flora Thompson in its celebration of...
Occupation Barbara Hofland
Mary Russell Mitford tells an amusing story of BH 's charitable philanthropy failing in its object. Hofland had been to great trouble and expense to help a starving male poet with a sick mother. She...
Textual Production Barbara Hofland
Mary Russell Mitford commented on this letter. Holford's modern biographer knew of no surviving copy of this work; OCLC lists only a single copy, at Cornell University .
Butts, Dennis. Mistress of our Tears, A Literary and Bibliographical Study of Barbara Hofland. Scolar Press.
70
OCLC WorldCat. http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/content/worldcat/. Accessed 1999.
Textual Production Barbara Hofland
BH 's correspondence with Mary Russell Mitford (whose earliest surviving letter dates from 25 May 1820) reveals her as an active and eclectic reader. The two women exchanged responses to Anna Maria Porter , Amelia Opie
Literary responses Barbara Hofland
In the early 1820s BH seems to have been at the apex of her career. She was appreciated not only by her friend Mary Russell Mitford (who believed that nobody else could combine so much...
Literary responses Barbara Hofland
Mary Russell Mitford wrote to BH , You are the mistress of our tears, as Miss Austen is of our smiles, and I think you have the advantage.
Butts, Dennis. Mistress of our Tears, A Literary and Bibliographical Study of Barbara Hofland. Scolar Press.
19
Apart from somewhat overvaluing Hofland, this...
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...

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