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 Anna Maria Bennett
Mary Russell Mitford read the Beggar Girl with delight as a schoolgirl in Chelsea, liking it not only for the character and the liveliness, but for the abundant story—incident toppling after incident; all sufficiently natural...
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
Literary responses Henrietta Euphemia Tindal
Mary Russell Mitford particularly praised The Infant Bridal for its pictorial qualities: she said it might be transferred to canvas without altering a word.
Mitford, Mary Russell. Recollections of a Literary Life; or, Books, Places and People. R. Bentley.
277
She said too that HET 's poetry so free, so...
Literary responses Caroline Herschel
In the beginning CH 's reputation was usually judged more as that of a woman and a sister than as that of a scientist. Frances Burney 's admiration and delight was directed at her as...
Literary responses Mary Howitt
Readers were often unable to distinguish between the two Howitts. Mary Russell Mitford , however, reading The Book of the Seasons (published under William 's name alone, in 1831, at both London and Philadelphia), rightly...
Literary responses Sydney Owenson, Lady Morgan
The review in the Critical made nostalgic reference to pleasure in Morgan's The Wild Irish Girl, and continued: As a national writer, we cannot too much admire her sentiments; and, as a descriptive writer...
Literary responses Mary Howitt
This must be the book which saddened Mary Russell Mitford and Henry Chorley when they judged that it turns out to be a dead failure.
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: 175
In his obituary of MH , James Britten
Literary responses Mary Ann Browne
The Monthly Review treated her with teacherly firmness, criticising her imagery and admonishing her not to confuse sparklings of youthful fancy with the genuine, concentric fire of imagination.
Blain, Virginia. “’Thou with Earth’s Music Answerest to the Sky’: Felicia Hemans, Mary Anne Browne, and the Myth of Poetic Sisterhood”. Women’s Writing, Vol.
2
, No. 3, pp. 251-69.
260
Mary Russell Mitford later recalled with...
Literary responses Charlotte O'Conor Eccles
Once again reviewers (as quoted at the back of The Matrimonial Lottery) were delighted with these [c]lever studies of Irish life and character. The Athenæum praised especially those stories which reflected first-hand knowledge (with...
Literary responses Sydney Owenson, Lady Morgan
The virtues of this powerful Irish novel were not fully appreciated in England. Mary Russell Mitford thought that Morgan would be all right without the politics: she would be worth reading and praising if only...
Literary responses Caroline Bowles
A few months after publication, The Birth-Day was read with very much pleasure by the William WordsworthWordsworth clan.
Blain, Virginia. Caroline Bowles Southey, 1786-1854. Ashgate.
122
Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Mary Russell Mitford discussed it in an exchange of letters. While Mitford thought...
Literary responses Catherine Fanshawe
Nearly twenty years after CF died, Mary Russell Mitford 's Recollections of a Literary Life supplied the first public comment on her; the publication also included four poems by Fanshawe that had previously appeared in...
Literary responses Mary Howitt
Mary Russell Mitford confided to Elizabeth Barrett , who had been charmed by The Neighbours, that she thought the translations' lack of popularity a sign of the poor taste of English novel-readers. Ah! dearest...
Literary responses Mary Ann Browne
Mary Russell Mitford wrote that of all poetesses, MAB had touched with the sweetest, the firmest, the most delicate hand, the difficult chords of female passion.
Feldman, Paula R., editor. British Women Poets of the Romantic Era. John Hopkins University Press.
155
Leisure and Society Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Elizabeth Barrett received her beloved cocker spaniel, Flush, as a gift from Mary Russell Mitford .
Forster, Margaret. Elizabeth Barrett Browning: A Biography. Grafton.
101
Browning, Robert, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The Brownings’ Correspondence. Editors Kelley, Philip et al., Wedgestone Press.
5: xii

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