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
Family and Intimate relationships Eliza Cook
After moving into the home of Weekly Dispatch editor James Harmer , she became involved in a scandal (large enough to have been known to Elizabeth Barrett Browning , who wrote of it to Mary Russell Mitford
Literary responses Dinah Mulock Craik
Mary Russell Mitford supposed from reading this book that its author was Elizabeth Barrett Browning .
Athenæum. J. Lection.
(9 March 1872): 298
She may, however, have been building on another's opinion, for the Athenæum reviewer found abundant...
Textual Production Ann Batten Cristall
The publisher Joseph Johnson issued by subscription ABC 's Poetical Sketches: an important text in women's Romanticism.
Her title was the same as that of William Blake 's first publication, 1783. Critic Richard C. Sha
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...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Camilla Crosland
Since she was well-connected in London literary circles, she was able to include in her memoir recollections of time spent working with the annuals and of literary figures such as Grace Aguilar , Lady Blessington
Family and Intimate relationships Selina Davenport
He was in his early twenties, just embarking on a literary career which began with writing poetry (melancholy in tone) and editing and criticising the poetry of others. He enjoyed the patronage of Edmund Burke
Textual Production Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton
Edward Bulwer 's hugely successful The Last Days of Pompeii appeared, as by the author of Pelham, in three volumes; another historical novel, Rienzi (based on the play of the same name by Mary Russell Mitford
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...
Textual Production Catherine Fanshawe
In 1793 CF corresponded with William Cowper 's friend Lady Hesketh , and through her, with Cowper himself. Mary Russell Mitford concurs in calling CF an excellent letter-writer.
Mitford, Mary Russell. Recollections of a Literary Life; or, Books, Places and People. R. Bentley.
1: 251
Textual Production Elizabeth Gaskell
The idea of self-improvement through writing and reading correlates to the strong emphasis in EG 's fiction on education and the impact of environment. This was undoubtedly influenced by a Unitarian intellectual background indebted to...
Friends, Associates Catherine Gore
CG was acquainted with a number of important literary figures. Before leaving London for the Continent she attended an assembly given by Rosina Bulwer-Lytton to which Disraeli , Lady Morgan , and Letitia Landon also...
Health Anna Maria Hall
Mary Russell Mitford reported AMH to be very ill: she was, however, using this report to back a thesis that supporting a family was too much for women's health.
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: 161-2
Intertextuality and Influence Anna Maria Hall
The finished work was greatly influenced by Mitford's 1824 Our Village and the introduction is addressed to Mitford.
Mitchell, Sally, editor. Victorian Britain: An Encyclopedia. Garland Press.
348
Scenes in The Rapparee were inspired by the painter Salvator Rosa .
Keane, Maureen. Mrs. S.C. Hall: A Literary Biography. Colin Smythe.
3
Literary responses Anna Maria Hall
The sketches were popular with readers.
Sutherland, John. The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford University Press.
A review in the Literary Gazette (yet more prone to read Irish stereotypes than Hall was to write them) called Sketches of Irish Characterthoroughly Irish, with all the...
Literary responses Laetitia-Matilda Hawkins
Mary Russell Mitford , stuck fast in this novel within a month or two of its publication, called it that do-me-good piece of vulgarity.
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.
1: 364

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