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
Health Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Her strength and spirit were further weakened by her grief over the death of her longtime though lately somewhat estranged friend, Mary Russell Mitford .
Friends, Associates Elizabeth Montagu
The term bluestocking very quickly came to imply dismissiveness, if not actual disapproval and contempt. The first to use it pejoratively may well have been, as Gary Kelly has suggested, those who felt threatened or...
Friends, Associates Felicia Hemans
FH introduced herself to Mary Russell Mitford through a letter praising Our Village for the sense of communion
Hughes, Harriet Browne Owen, and Felicia Hemans. “Memoir of Mrs. Hemans”. The Works of Mrs. Hemans, W. Blackwood, pp. 1-315.
123
with its author that she felt in reading it.
Hughes, Harriet Browne Owen, and Felicia Hemans. “Memoir of Mrs. Hemans”. The Works of Mrs. Hemans, W. Blackwood, pp. 1-315.
122-4
Friends, Associates Fanny Kemble
Mary Russell Mitford was another who knew FK well even apart from their connection through the theatre.
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: 119-20
Other friends from this period or soon afterwards included the future poet and novelist Caroline Norton
Friends, Associates Camilla Crosland
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 Anna Jane Vardill
While she lived in London AJV moved in culturally active circles. She later described the poet Eleanor Anne Porden (who lived not far away) as her dear friend, and was one of those who...
Friends, Associates Barbarina Brand, Baroness Dacre
Her many literary friendships, maintained in part by correspondence, included those with Joanna Baillie and Mary Russell Mitford (who first met each other in her drawing-room), Catherine Fanshawe , and Mary Tighe (with whom she...
Friends, Associates Mary Howitt
In Nottingham MH met L. E. L. and perhaps Elizabeth Fry . She was visited by Mary and Dora Wordsworth (wife and daughter of the poet), and later she and her husband stayed with the...
Friends, Associates Henrietta Euphemia Tindal
Friends with whom she maintained contact by correspondence included her neighbour Mary Russell Mitford , who commented to Elizabeth Barrett Browning that HET had been wrong in her theory about the authorship of Jane Eyre...
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
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
Vardill was a friend and associate from...
Friends, Associates Mary Ann Browne
MAB had already met L. E. L. and Mary Russell Mitford .
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
She now met the Chorley family, Shelton Mackenzie of the Dublin University Magazine, and other figures in Liverpool literary society. She presumably...
Friends, Associates Caroline Bowles
Talk about the conflict at Greta Hall circulated through England's literary circles. Henry Crabb Robinson , Sarah Burney , Elizabeth Barrett Browning , and Mary Russell Mitford were all privy to this gossip.
Blain, Virginia. Caroline Bowles Southey, 1786-1854. Ashgate.
4
Friends, Associates Harriet Martineau
HM 's social circle vastly expanded at this time until she knew virtually all the prominent people, particularly the political men, of her day. As she recorded in her Autobiography, however, she refused to...
Friends, Associates Barbara Hofland
BH retained at least one life-long friendship from her Sheffield or Attercliffe days: with the poet and novelist Sarah Pearson , who had been her neighbour there. Pearson's will charged Hofland with the task of...

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