Mary Russell Mitford

-
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 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...
Textual Production Henrietta Euphemia Tindal
HET contributed the introduction to Henry Chorley 's edition of Mary Russell Mitford 's letters (published by March 1872) and her Story of Kitty Canham appeared in July 1880 in Temple Bar.
Athenæum. J. Lection.
2315 (1872): 297
Tindal, Henrietta Euphemia. Rhymes and Legends. Richard Bentley and Son.
xi
Houghton, Walter E., and Jean Harris Slingerland, editors. The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals 1824-1900. University of Toronto Press.
Education Elizabeth Taylor
Her first school, where she went at the age of six, was a little private establishment called Leopold House, which gave a grounding in English and maths and team games.
Beauman, Nicola. The Other Elizabeth Taylor. Persephone Books.
12-13
When Betty was eleven...
Reception Sydney Owenson, Lady Morgan
Lord Melbourne offered Sydney, Lady Morgan , a Crown pension of three hundred pounds a year; she gladly accepted. She had been a close and supportive friend of Melbourne's first wife, Lady Caroline Lamb ...
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 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...
Textual Features Annie S. Swan
The indices to its bound volumes list both tales and serial tales without naming the authors—even though, as named on the pages where their work actually appears, they include such luminaries as Robert Buchanan and...
Textual Production Elizabeth Isabella Spence
The title-page quotes Mary Russell Mitford 's recent Blanche of Castile (in Narrative Poems on the Female Character). EIS dedicated her work to Lady Hamlyn-Williams (Diana Anne née Whitaker, wife of the second baronet)...
death Robert Southey
A year and a half before he died Mary Russell Mitford wrote of him: the mind gone—dark depression and utter failure of intellect.
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: 232
He has a particularly striking monument in Poets' Corner in...
Intertextuality and Influence Harriet Smythies
In a critical preface HS reveals her gender though not her name. She opens by invoking the author of Rienzi (either, Mary Russell Mitford or Edward Bulwer Lytton ). The two groups of lovers and...
Education Mary Martha Sherwood
St Quintin was a sophisticated educator who had been French Ambassador in London, and who published pedagogical books which took into consideration the age and development of the children for whom they were designed. He...
Literary responses Lady Rachel Russell
As love-letters, they made a great and immediate impression on their readers. Yet later this year Mary Russell Mitford wrote of LRR with dislike. Mitford found her heavy, preachy, and prosy. As a writer, she...
Textual Production Frances Arabella Rowden
The first canto was drafted by 7 February 1809, when Mary Russell Mitford read it and hoped it would extend to a second canto. She read its praise of a male friend as sweet as...
Literary responses Frances Arabella Rowden
Rowden's poem was reviewed by the Critical (3rd series 20 (May 1810): 112). Mary Russell Mitford read the first canto with high appreciation and admiration that increase[d] with every perusal. She expected it to rank...
Textual Production Frances Arabella Rowden
In October 1811 FAR was considering whether to undertake an English translation of Charlemagne by Lucien Bonaparte . Mary Russell Mitford suggested that they should do it jointly, dividing up the piece (she thought she...

Timeline

No timeline events available.

Texts

Mitford, Mary Russell. The Works of Mary Russell Mitford, Prose and Verse. James Crissy, 1841.
Mitford, Mary Russell. Watlington Hill. A. J. Valpy, 1812.