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 Barbara Hofland
In the early 1820s BH seems to have been at the apex of her career. She was appreciated not only by her friend Mary Russell Mitford (who believed that nobody else could combine so much...
Intertextuality and Influence Susan Hill
The setting of this book is an imaginary village called Barley Oxfordshire, based on the village where SH lived. Consciously or not, it follows Mary Russell Mitford and Flora Thompson in its celebration of...
Leisure and Society Elizabeth Heyrick
In the year 1827 EH 's reading included all of Jane Austen 's completed novels and Mary Russell Mitford 's Our Village.
Beale, Catherine Hutton, editor. Catherine Hutton and Her Friends. Cornish Brothers.
179
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...
Friends, Associates Henry Peter, Baron Brougham
Brougham had a number of friends among women writers. He was at primary school in Edinburgh with Susan Ferrier (who, however, declined to acknowledge him later, probably for political reasons). His political work brought him...
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
Reception Felicia Hemans
Mary Russell Mitford believed by May 1837 that FH had received a pension from the Crown of £100 a year. In fact, Robert Peel , the prime minister, had in the year of her death...
Literary responses Felicia Hemans
Maria Jane Jewsbury had already begun the idealisation of FH in 1830 with her portrait of Egeria in The History of a Nonchalant: a muse, a grace, a variable child, a dependent woman—the Italy...
Reception Felicia Hemans
As the Victorian period advanced, FH 's popularity with readers held firm, but critics became less enthusiastic. George Gilfillan published a substantial article on her in Tait's Edinburgh Magazine in 1847, placing her first in...
Intertextuality and Influence Elizabeth Helme
The Critical reviewed this novel two months after publication. It goes unmentioned by Virgil B. Heltzel in Fair Rosamond. A Study of the Development of a Literary Theme, 1947. Those preceding Helme in treating...
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
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...
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
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...

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