Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Mary Howitt
-
Standard Name: Howitt, Mary
Birth Name: Mary Botham
Married Name: Mary Howitt
Pseudonym: Wilfreda
Between them, Mary Howitt
and her husband William
wrote and published over 180 books. Hers alone, at her death, occupied forty pages of the British Museum
printed catalogue.
Dunicliff, Joy. Mary Howitt: Another Lost Victorian Writer. Excalibur Press of London.
1, 261
Bearing the expenses of a large family, they needed to harness their literary productivity to earning potential.
Dunicliff, Joy. Mary Howitt: Another Lost Victorian Writer. Excalibur Press of London.
1, 134-5
As an opportunistic writer in several low-status, low-cost genres, accustomed to placing the same work in several successive venues, MH
left a complex, even confusing bibliography, not yet reduced to order by scholars.
EG
wrote Mary Barton following the death of her ten-month-old son in 1845. Johann Ludwig Uhland
's Auf der Überfahrt, from which she takes one of her epigraphs, refers to two from the spirit-land...
Publishing
Elizabeth Gaskell
Through a contact of Mary Howitt
, EG
published a number of stories in the AmericanSartain's Union Magazine, including one of English domestic life entitled The Last Generation in England, that appeared...
Reception
Elizabeth Gaskell
Around the time of Ruth's appearance, Swedish novelist and feminist Fredrika Bremer
(who was probably introduced to EG
by William
and Mary Howitt
) wrote: Dear Elizabeth, dear sister in spirit, if I may...
Anthologization
Elizabeth Gaskell
EG
first reached print alone when her gothic sketch Clopton Hall was included in Mary
and William Howitt
's Visits to Remarkable Places.
Uglow, Jennifer S. Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories. Faber and Faber.
37
The Athenaeum Index of Reviews and Reviewers: 1830-1870. http://replay.web.archive.org/20070714065452/http://www.soi.city.ac.uk/~asp/v2/home.html.
637 (11 January 1840): 34-6
Textual Production
Sarah Josepha Hale
The original edition ran to just over nine hundred pages, and was illustrated with two hundred and thirty portrait wood engravings. SJH
dated her prefatory material at Philadelpha on 4 July 1851; a note added...
Friends, Associates
Anna Maria Hall
One of AMH
's closest friends was the actress Helen Faucit
, later Lady Martin. Though socially conservative in her attitudes, she was apparently more ready than her husband to achieve friendly relations with those...
Textual Production
Elizabeth Ham
EH
anonymously contributed Mabel (a ghost story about a deaf girl) to an anthology, The Remembrance, edited by Thomas Roscoe
and dedicated to Queen Adelaide
.
Scholar Kathryn Gleadle
calls this radical unitarian club a unique, feminist experiment in adult...
Textual Production
Matilda Hays
In 1847, while still in her twenties, MH
was led by her desire to improve the lot of women to found a periodical. In the words of her later application for a Civil List
pension:...
Friends, Associates
Felicia Hemans
FH
's literary correspondents and friends included Grace Aguilar
, Joanna Baillie
(whose Beacon she recalled reading when very young), and Mary Howitt
.
Elwood, Anne Katharine. Memoirs of the Literary Ladies of England, from the Commencement of the Last Century. Henry Colburn.
238
Chorley, Henry Fothergill. Memorials of Mrs. Hemans. Saunders and Otley.
BH
seems to have remained saleable for a long time, since The Gift of Friendship . . . with contributions by . . . Mrs. Hofland appeared as late as 1877. Others included were Mary Howitt
Anthologization
Anna Mary Howitt
Anna Mary Howitt (now Watts)
, as the author of An Art-Student in Munich, contributed Some Passages from the Child-life of Lucy Meridyth to an anthology compiled by her mother, Mary Howitt
: The...
Family and Intimate relationships
Anna Mary Howitt
AMH
's mother, Mary Howitt
, became a well-known and much-loved writer in many genres, particularly for children.
Publishing
Anna Mary Howitt
During her time in Munich and her briefer time in Oberammergau, AMH
wrote articles which were published in the Ladies' Companion, the Athenæum, and Household Words. Her description of the Oberammergau passion...