Mary Martha Sherwood

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Standard Name: Sherwood, Mary Martha
Birth Name: Mary Martha Butt
Married Name: Mary Martha Sherwood
Indexed Name: Mrs Sherwood
Pseudonym: A Young Lady
Pseudonym: The Author of The Traditions
MMSwrote and signed more than 350 books (mostly for children, but including several adult novels), and left almost a score of fat volumes of diary. Some of her children's books, despite their uncompromisingly hell-fire message, remained current for several generations and were vividly remembered by many impressionable children, some of whom grew up to be writers. Her former high repute as a children's writer is at least as well deserved for her autobiography and diary, and her biographer Naomi Royde-Smith seriously admired some of her novels.
Royde-Smith, Naomi, and Denis Dighton. The State of Mind of Mrs. Sherwood. Macmillan, 1946.
1
She also wrote poems. The British Library lacks many of her books; the holdings of Cambridge University Library and the Bodleian are better.
Head-and-shoulders print of Mary Martha Sherwood in profile by M. Maskall. She rests her head on a hand. Only her face and her frilled and ribboned cap are rendered in detail.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Education Carola Oman
The children's great delight was their mother reading aloud: theLamb s' Tales from Shakespeare, Sir Walter Scott 's poems, William Edmonstoune Aytoun 's Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers, 1865, Mary Martha Sherwood
Education Winifred Peck
From their nurse and the books read aloud by their governess rather than from their parents, the Knox children's religious education tended in the direction of bigotry, as mentioned above.
Peck, Winifred. A Little Learning; or, A Victorian Childhood. Faber and Faber, 1952.
26-9
Their parents encouraged them...
Education Annie Keary
Annie was an eager reader, and in a comparative dearth of children's books she read the educationalist Rollin and the ancient historian Plutarch at an early age.
It is probably Charles Rollin who is meant...
Education Rudyard Kipling
Even during the years of the detested Southsea school RK was developing an appreciation for literature. He writes of being surprised when reading (something Mrs Holloway forced him to do under threat of punishment) turned...
Education Ann Bridge
As a small child she stood out among the family for her quite exceptional naughtiness, which in later years she put down to surplus energy and dramatic ideas.
Bridge, Ann. A Family of Two Worlds. Macmillan, 1955.
141
When she began regular lessons, and...
Education Frances Browne
FB 's blindness meant that she did not have a formal education, and she very early felt the want of it.
Browne, Frances. The Star of Attéghéi; the Vision of Schwartz; and Other Poems. Edward Moxon, 1844.
ix
From the age of seven, when she heard a sermon she did not...
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, 2009.
12-13
When Betty was eleven...
Education Mary Russell Mitford
She spent several years at the boarding school at 22 Hans Place in Chelsea, run by Monsieur de St Quintin or St Quentin (who bailed her father out with money in some of his...
Family and Intimate relationships Mary Butts
His forebears had strong links with the artistic world. While he himself was a friend of the Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti , Mary's great-grandfather, Captain Thomas Butts , had been a patron of William Blake
Friends, Associates Frances Arabella Rowden
FAR was visited in Paris in 1820 by her old schoolfellow Mary Martha Sherwood .
Darton, F. J. Harvey, editor. The Life and Times of Mrs. Sherwood. Wells Gardner, Darton, 1910.
450
By this date they had in common their intensely Evangelical belief.
Friends, Associates Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck
She knew other distinguished writers from the previous generation too, and her friends both before and after her marriage included many in the world of literature. A couple of years after this she spent the...
Friends, Associates Hannah More
Many of her later friends were at least a generation younger than she was. She met many members of the Clapham Sect in the 1790s, of whom Henry Thornton and his daughter Marianne became particularly...
Intertextuality and Influence Harriett Mozley
The month of the title is that of December, with Christmas in its midst. The story is one of family relationships among children: realistic, witty, and uncondescending. The issue of child nurture and education in...
Intertextuality and Influence E. Nesbit
Wet Magic is a book full of legendary water creatures such as mermaids. It features a family of children tyrannised over by the unpleasant Aunt Enid (a contrast with other aunts whom EN had presented...
Intertextuality and Influence Sarah Fielding
The book's admirers included (perhaps embarrassingly) the courtesan Teresia Constantia Phillips , who praised it in her Memoirs.
Catto, Susan J. Modest Ambition: The Influence of Henry Fielding, Samuel Richardson, and the Ideal of Female Diffidence on Sarah Fielding, Charlotte Lennox, and Frances Brooke. University of Oxford, 1998.
72
Jane Collier in her commonplace-book not only noted that Mrs Teachum has the Swift ian...

Timeline

By May 1619
The Calvinist Synod of Dort in Holland confirmed the doctrine of total human depravity, setting it at the head of their articles of doctrine.
About 1766
Printer and engraver John Spilsbury perfected the dissected map which became the forerunner of the jigsaw puzzle.