Born: 16 December 1787, United Kingdom
Died: 10 January 1855
Country most active: United Kingdom
Also known as: NA
From Famous Women: An Outline of Feminine Achievement Through the Ages With Life Stories of Five Hundred Noted Women. Written by Joseph Adelman, published 1926 by Ellis M Lonow Company:
Mary Russell Mitford, an English novelist and dramatist. She retains an honorable place in English literature, as the author of Our Village, a series of sketches of village scenes and characters, which possess charm, grace, and humor akin to Jane Austin’s.
Miss Mitford’s life was largely devoted to her father, Dr. George Mitford, a curious character, who lived on the proceeds of his daughter’s literary industry.
Among her dramatic works, five in number, Rienzi was most successful; in America it became popular with Charlotte Cushman as Claudia.
Her Recollections of a Literary Life is a series of causeries about her favorite books. She also published a number of poems, and stories for children.
Her talk was said by her friends. Mrs. Browning and Hungist Horne, to have been even more brilliant and amusing than her books, and her Life and Letters, show her to have been a delightful letter-writer.
From Woman: Her Position, Influence and Achievement Throughout the Civilized World. Designed and Arranged by William C. King. Published in 1900 by The King-Richardson Co. Copyright 1903 The King-Richardson Co.:
Mary Russell Mitford, English Authoress, 1786 – 1855 A.D.
Anyone who wishes to obtain a picture of English rural life should read the works of Miss Mitford. It is said that she obtained her idea of this kind of writing from Irving’s Sketch Book, but she showed herself a pupil to do her honor to her teacher.
She was born in Alresford, Hampshire, England. Her father was a physician and at one time possessed considerable wealth. On one occasion he won $100,000 in a lottery, which, as usual, proved a great misfortune, for he soon squandered that and all else that he possessed.
When twenty years of age Miss Mitford published three volumes of poems, somewhat in the style of Sir Walter Scott. These met with a fair degree of success, but she was not satisfied with them, and for several years gave herself again to reading.
The financial reverses of her father made it necessary for her to do something to win bread and she again took up the pen to support both herself and him again. As we read her charming productions, we are not sorry that she was obliged to resume writing.
Her sketches, Our Village, were not appreciated at first and many publishers of magazines refused them. They at length found a place in one of the minor periodicals and after a time the public began to relish the freshness and exquisite finish of her sketches and they were put forth in book form. She loved nature and helped others to do the same. Her readers had looked at things before, now they saw them.
Miss Mitford wrote several other works, Country Stories, Edinburgh Tales, and several dramas, among them Rienzi. Also Recollections of Literary Life in three volumes. But Our Village always held the first place, and the obscure hamlet became a place of resort. People came to search out the nooks and corners and haunts and copses so charmingly described. One write asks, “Who ever threw aside a sketch of hers half read?” Another, “We cannot conceive of her rural delineation over becoming obsolete or uninteresting.”