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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.
Connections
| Connections | Author name Sort ascending | Excerpt |
|---|---|---|
| Cultural formation | Frances Arabella Rowden | |
| Education | Frances Arabella Rowden | Students at the school during the brief period when Rowden was a pupil included a couple of future writers: |
| Occupation | Frances Arabella Rowden | FAR
was clearly a key element, perhaps the key element, in the success of the Hans Place school. She taught the general curriculum there for nearly twenty-five years, from its founding until 1818, and she... |
| Leisure and Society | Frances Arabella Rowden | Rowden made the most of the cultural opportunities offered by London; she took pupils to attend the theatre and visit picture galleries, and continued to frequent these attractions when Mitford
visited her after leaving school. |
| 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... |
| Literary responses | Emma Robinson | The Athenæum's reviewer, Henry Fothergill Chorley
, wrote that after Mary Russell Mitford
's characterization of Cromwell
in her Charles the First, we know not who has conceived of the great General better... |
| Textual Production | Anne Thackeray Ritchie | ATR
wrote a memorial preface to Poems and Music by Anne Evans
in 1880. In 1892 she drew on her father
's ideas for a largely anecdotal introduction to Elizabeth Gaskell
's Cranford. Callow, Steven D. “A Biographical Sketch of Lady Anne Thackeray Ritchie”. Virginia Woolf Quarterly, Vol. 2 , pp. 285-7. 293 |
| Reception | Jane Porter | Mary Russell Mitford
declined to feel sorry for JP
, who was, she said, sick . . . of her condemned play (that is since Switzerland failed). Her disease is wounded vanity. 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. 1: 341 |
| Literary responses | Jane Porter | Again her work was extremely popular. The French translation was banned by Napoleon
because of its portrayal of nationalist resistance to conquest. Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford. |
| 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 |
| Family and Intimate relationships | Eleanor Anne Porden | Although EAP
was not beautiful—indeed, Mary Russell Mitford
(no beauty herself) remarked on her ugliness— 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 |
| Reception | Eleanor Anne Porden | Mary Russell Mitford
was given this poem to review by Whittaker
; it was then that she met EAP
. 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 |
| Publishing | Eleanor Anne Porden | EAP
addressed a letter on the subject of Bread to the editor of the Sun in about 1817. Porden, Eleanor Anne, and Edith M. Gell. “Letters: 1821-1824”. John Franklin’s Bride, John Murray, p. various pages. 16-17 |
| 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 |
| Textual Production | Emma Parker | The title-page mentions three of her previous works and quotes Mary Russell Mitford
on the topic of romantic Spain. |
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Texts
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