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
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
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...
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...
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
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...
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
politics Frances Trollope
Mary Russell Mitford later recalled that FTused to be such a Radical that her house in London was a perfect emporium of escaped state criminals. I remember asking her at one of her parties...
Friends, Associates Frances Trollope
It took several years for the Trollopes' financial difficulties to turn into a financial catastrophe, and during those years, FT entertained many friends and acquaintances, including Lady Milman , whose husband had been Queen Charlotte
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...
Intertextuality and Influence Catharine Parr Traill
Many of CPT 's early works were published with the Quaker publishing firm Harvey and Darton . Peterman sees in these works the influence of Virgil , Izaak Walton , Mary Russell Mitford , and Gilbert White .
New, William H., editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 99. Gale Research.
332
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...

Timeline

11 July 1798: Thomas Green reported (not favourably) on...

Building item

11 July 1798

Thomas Green reported (not favourably) on Miss Linwood's Exhibition of Needle Work, of works imitating famous paintings such as a Raphael madonna.

1825: Alexander Dyce, then a twenty-seven-year-old...

Women writers item

1825

Alexander Dyce , then a twenty-seven-year-old reluctant clergyman, published his Specimens of British Poetesses, a project in rediscovering women's literary history.

3 June 1829: Publisher Henry Colburn went into partnership...

Writing climate item

3 June 1829

Publisher Henry Colburn went into partnership with Richard Bentley (1794 - ­1871) (who, in order to do this, had just dissolved the partnership between himself and his brother Samuel Bentley as printers).

1832: Joseph Henry Parker took over his uncle's...

Writing climate item

1832

Joseph Henry Parker took over his uncle's Oxford bookselling and publishing business; as J. H. Parker it soon became the foremost publisher of the Oxford or Tractarian Movement.

17 February 1847: The Whittington Club (named after the poor...

Building item

17 February 1847

The Whittington Club (named after the poor boy who became Lord Mayor of London) held its first meeting. Unlike traditional gentlemen's clubs, it welcomed women and lower-middle-class men.

: Mary Russell Mitford complained satirically...

Building item

Autumn1853

Mary Russell Mitford complained satirically of a Pusey ite curate in Reading, admired (to her embarrassment) by other women.

1861: A company in Salem, Massachusetts, issued...

Writing climate item

1861

A company in Salem, Massachusetts, issued what seems to be the earliest version of a game called Authors, whose object was to collect sets of cards bearing the names of writers and the...

Texts

Mitford, Mary Russell. Atherton, and Other Tales. Hurst and Blackett, 1854.
Mitford, Mary Russell. Belford Regis; or, Sketches of a Country Town. R. Bentley, 1835.
Mitford, Mary Russell. Charles the First. John Duncombe, 1834.
Mitford, Mary Russell. Christina, the Maid of the South Seas. F. C. and J. Rivington , 1811.
Mitford, Mary Russell. Country Stories. Saunders and Otley, 1837.
Mitford, Mary Russell. Dramatic Scenes, Sonnets, and Other Poems. G. B. Whittaker, 1827.
Mitford, Mary Russell, editor. Finden’s Tableaux. C. Tilt, 1841.
Mitford, Mary Russell. Foscari. G. B. Whittaker, 1826.
Mitford, Mary Russell. Gaston de Blondeville. Hurst and Blackett, 1854.
Mitford, Mary Russell. Inez de Castro. J. Dicks, 1841.
Ritchie, Anne Thackeray et al. “Introduction”. Our Village, Macmillan, 1902, p. vii - liii.
Mitford, Mary Russell. “Introduction by the Editor”. The Life of Mary Russell Mitford: Told by Herself in Letters To Her Friends, edited by Alfred Guy Kingham L’Estrange, Harper and Brothers, 1870, pp. 13-39.
Mitford, Mary Russell. Julian. G. and W. B. Whittaker, 1823.
Mitford, Mary Russell. Letters of Mary Russell Mitford, Second Series. Editor Chorley, Henry Fothergill, R. Bentley and Son, 1872.
Mitford, Mary Russell. Narrative Poems on the Female Character, in the Various Relations of Human Life. Printed by A. J. Valpy, 1813.
Mitford, Mary Russell. Our Village. Whittaker, 1832.
Mitford, Mary Russell. Poems. Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1810.
Mitford, Mary Russell. Recollections of a Literary Life; or, Books, Places and People. Harper and Brothers, 1852.
Mitford, Mary Russell. Recollections of a Literary Life; or, Books, Places and People. R. Bentley, 1852.
Mitford, Mary Russell. Recollections of a Literary Life; or, Books, Places and People. Cambridge University Press, 2010, http://www.cambridge.org/series/sSeries.asp?code=CLOR.
Mitford, Mary Russell. Rienzi. J. Cumberland, 1828.
Mitford, Mary Russell. Sadak and Kalasrade; or, The Waters of Oblivion. Printed for the proprietor, 1835.
Mitford, Mary Russell. The Dramatic Works of Mary Russell Mitford. Hurst and Blackett, 1854.
Mitford, Mary Russell, and William Harness. The Life of Mary Mary Russell Mitford, Related in a Selection from Her Letters to Her Friends. Editor L’Estrange, Alfred Guy Kingham, R. Bentley, 1870.
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, 1870.