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, 1992.
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, 1992.
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.
CC
's friends and acquaintances were varying and numerous. In her youth the radical politician John Cartwright
was a neighbour. Her literary work as an adult led to the formation of a number of lasting...
Friends, Associates
Ellen Wood
As she began to establish herself as a writer, EW
became a friend of her fellow authors Anna Maria Hall
, Julia Kavanagh
, and Mary Howitt
. The latter wrote her a complimentary letter...
Friends, Associates
Fredrika Bremer
FB's lifelong friendship with Per Böklin
survived her refusal of his hand and his marriage to someone else. The influence he had on her thinking was shared by Stina, Countess Sommerhielm
, and the academic...
Friends, Associates
Hans Christian Andersen
HCA
dedicated his book A Poet's Day Dreams to Charles Dickens
, whom he visited in 1857. He also, while visiting England, stayed with William
and Mary Howitt
at The Elms, Lower Clapton. Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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, 1843, 2 vols.
238
Chorley, Henry Fothergill. Memorials of Mrs. Hemans. Saunders and Otley, 1836, 2 vols.
While deliberately selecting flowers for their aesthetic qualities, she expresses a wish for botany to become a subject as common in girls' schools as French and music.
Howe, Bea. Lady with Green Fingers. Country Life, 1961.
Marsh, Jan, and Pamela Gerrish Nunn. Women Artists and the Pre-Raphaelite Movement. Virago, 1989.
41
Athenæum. J. Lection.
1333 (1853): 584-5
Intertextuality and Influence
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Byron
and Wordsworth
were important poetic influences. Books that Elizabeth Barrett owned and kept until her death included Philip James Bailey
's Festus, A Poem, a major text of the spasmodic school, L. E. L.
Intertextuality and Influence
Elizabeth Gaskell
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...
Intertextuality and Influence
Dinah Mulock Craik
Sally Mitchell
compares The Head of the Family to the large-cast family story
The central character is the undowered girl Florence Leslie—so called because of her birth in Italy—whose high-minded principles have been fuelled by indiscriminate
Aguilar, Grace. Woman’s Friendship. D. Appleton and Company, 1891.
13
reading in history, poetry, and romance at an early age...
Intertextuality and Influence
Frances Eleanor Trollope
The Trollopes' collaborative work, whose title was influenced by William
and Mary Howitt
's Homes and Haunts of the Most Eminent British Poets, is a collection of previously written articles, all concerning Italian literary...
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, 1952.
