Mary Howitt

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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.
Black and white, head-and-shoulders photograph of the aged Mary Howitt. She is dressed in black: a dark hood covers her grey hair and white cap; her black, patterned cloak, tied with dark ribbons, covers a dark dress buttoned in front. Her eyes are cast down.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Fictionalization Harriet Martineau
Mary Russell Mitford wrote disapprovingly of HM 's claims: I see no good in these experiments.
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: 281
Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna 's pamphlet Mesmerism: A Letter to Miss Martineau, argued that if the account...
Textual Production Harriet Martineau
It was dated 1851. Her biographer R. K. Webb claims that the bulk of the book is Atkinson 's, with promptings from Harriet Martineau , although it certainly also includes substantial letters from her.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
HM
Literary responses Harriet Martineau
This book resulted in public outcry. Douglas Jerrold responded with wit: There is no God, and Harriet Martineau is his Prophet.
Webb, Robert Kiefer. Harriet Martineau: A Radical Victorian. Columbia University Press.
299
Mary Howitt came to regret her contribution to the most awful book that...
Textual Production Louisa Anne Meredith
Tilt and Bogue produced a new edition in 1843.
Meredith, Louisa Anne. Our Wild Flowers. Tilt and Bogue.
The title page sports an epigraph by Mary Howitt , and the volume is illustrated with coloured plates from the author's original drawings.
Occupation Louisa Anne Meredith
While living on the east coast she had continued in her activities as a naturalist and became, through correspondence, acquainted with notable scientists in Europe and Australia. With them she discussed her collection of insects...
Residence Eliza Meteyard
On 26 June 1848 she wrote to Leigh Hunt from (apparently) Lamb Street in Spitalfields. For some years her home was the house of Margaret Gillies (a successful artist, portraitist, and feminist, who lived...
Friends, Associates Eliza Meteyard
She became connected through her writing to Douglas Jerrold , Mary and William Howitt , and Harriet Martineau .
Lightbown, Ronald W., and Eliza Meteyard. “Introduction”. The Life of Josiah Wedgwood, Cornmarket Press.
The difficulties of social life for unattached women are visible in her regret and anxiety over...
Leisure and Society Eliza Meteyard
She belonged to the Whittington Club , where Mary Howitt urged her in November 1846 to speak to the company.
Woodring, Carl Ray. Victorian Samplers: William and Mary Howitt. University of Kansas Press.
123
Wealth and Poverty Eliza Meteyard
EM found the financial pressure to write intense; she complained in 1857 of a spider's web of work, which necessity of ways and means compels me to do.
Lightbown, Ronald W., and Eliza Meteyard. “Introduction”. The Life of Josiah Wedgwood, Cornmarket Press.
In addition to maintaining herself, she assisted...
Literary responses Eliza Meteyard
Mary Howitt prophesied that EM 's piece on the Protection of Women would cause that little sneakJohn Saunders (founder of the People's Journal, from whom the Howitts split when they launched Howitt's Journal...
Publishing Eliza Meteyard
It was her earnings from this book, said Mary Howitt , that served to set up a younger brother in Australia.
Lee, Amice. Laurels & Rosemary: The Life of William and Mary Howitt. Oxford University Press.
188
Publishing Eliza Meteyard
She had formed the intention to write it in 1850, and was later helped by the loan of a huge haul of manuscripts.
Woodring, Carl Ray. Victorian Samplers: William and Mary Howitt. University of Kansas Press.
181
Mary and William Howitt helped her secure a generous £1,000 from...
Reception Eliza Meteyard
It was granted by William Gladstone at the instigation of Mary and William Howitt .
Lightbown, Ronald W., and Eliza Meteyard. “Introduction”. The Life of Josiah Wedgwood, Cornmarket Press.
Family and Intimate relationships Charlotte Mew
Young Charlotte developed an adolescent crush on her headmistress, Lucy Harrison , who was a niece of writer Mary Howitt , a charismatic Quaker, and a scholar of English literature.
Warner, Val. “New Light on Charlotte Mew”. PN Review, Vol.
24
, No. 1, pp. 43-7.
44
According to CM 's...
Friends, Associates Mary Russell Mitford
She knew most of the literary women of her day, including Felicia Hemans (who wrote to ask her for an autograph),
L’Estrange, Alfred Guy Kingham, editor. The Friendships of Mary Russell Mitford as Recorded in Letters from Her Literary Correspondents. Hurst and Blackett.
1: 173-4
Jane Porter , Amelia Opie (that warm-hearted person),
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: 213

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