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
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, 1882, 2 vols.
1: 121
Vardill was a friend and associate from...
Friends, Associates Maria Jane Jewsbury
Although they had been corresponding by letter for some time, this holiday was the first time the two writers met in person. MJJ was soon accepted into Hemans ' social circle and become friends with...
Friends, Associates Frances Trollope
It took several years for the Trollopes' financial difficulties to turn into a financial catastrophe, and during those years, FT entertained many friends and acquaintances, including Lady Milman , whose husband had been Queen Charlotte
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 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, 1870, 2 vols.
2: 244
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 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, 1870, 2 vols.
2: 119-20
Other friends from this period or soon afterwards included the future poet and novelist Caroline Norton
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 Felicia Hemans
FH introduced herself to Mary Russell Mitford through a letter praising Our Village for the sense of communion
qtd. in
Hughes, Harriet Browne Owen, and Felicia Hemans. “Memoir of Mrs. Hemans”. The Works of Mrs. Hemans, W. Blackwood, 1839, 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, 1839, pp. 1-315.
122-4
Health Amelia Opie
Mary Russell Mitford thought AO much changed in April 1813: paler, thinner, and older looking.
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, 1870, 2 vols.
1: 181
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 .
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, 1870, 2 vols.
2: 161-2
Intertextuality and Influence Marguerite Gardiner Countess of Blessington
The elderly lady, Lady Arabella, represents a chilly view of the English aristocracy. She opens her story with a paean in praise of past times and in dispraise of the present: How interminably long the...
Intertextuality and Influence Susanna Moodie
Critic Carl Ballstadt numbers Suffolk writers Thomas Harral and James Bird among SM 's most important influences. Her sketches are also indebted to Mary Russell Mitford , with whom she corresponded.
New, William H., editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 99. Gale Research, 1990.
249
Intertextuality and Influence Frances Trollope
FT 's years of literary success were marked by tragedy: she lost two of her children to consumption, and eventually lost a third.
Nadel, Ira Bruce, and William E. Fredeman, editors. Dictionary of Literary Biography 21. Gale Research, 1983.
21: 324
Heineman, Helen. Mrs. Trollope: The Triumphant Feminine in the Nineteenth Century. Ohio University Press, 1979.
135
However, her writing brought her into a supportive network...

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