Mary Russell Mitford was born at Alresford, in Hampshire, the only child of Dr. George Mitford. After attending boarding school she published poetry and Julian, a successful tragedy. Her best-known work was Our Village, published in five volumes (1824-32). With the proceeds from this work and her publications in the literary annuals she supported her spendthrift father until his death in 1842. In 1852 she published three volumes of memoirs as Recollections of a Literary Life.
TEXT RECORDS:
1811Christina, the Maid of the South Seas; a Poem.
1811Ode to Consumption.
1811Westminster Abbey.
1811[To her Father, on the Spenserian Stanza.]
1811[To the Spirit of the South Seas.]
1812Ode to Genius.
1813Introduction to Narrative Poems on the Female Character.
1813The Rival Sisters: a Poem, in Three Cantos.
1820[To William Elford, 11 November, 1820; on Walter Scott.]
1827On leaving a favourite Picture.
PUBLICATIONS:
Poems. 1810, 1811.
Christina, the maid of the South Seas: a poem. 1811.
Blanche of Castille. 1812.
Watlington Hill: a poem.
Narrative poems on the female character. 1813.
Julian: a tragedy in five acts. 1823.
Our village: skeches of rural character and scenery. 5 vols, 1824-32.
Foscari: a tragedy.
Foscari and Julian: tragedies. 1827.
Dramatic scenes, sonnets, and other poems. 1827.
Rienzi: a tragedy. 1828.
Mary, Queen of Scots: a scene in English verse. 1831.
Lights and shadows of American life. 3 vols, 1832.
Charles the First: an historical tragedy in five acts. 1834.
Sadak and Kalasrade, or the waters of oblivion: a romantic opera. 1836.
Belford Regis: or sketches of a country town. 3 vols, 1835.
Country stories. 1837.
Works, prose and verse. 1841.
Recollections of a literary life: or books, places, and people. 3 vols, 1852.
Atherton and other tales. 3 vols, 1854.
Dramatic works. 2 vols, 1854.
The life of Mary Russell Mitford in a selection from her letters. 3 vols, 1870.
Letters to C. Boner. 1871.
The letters of Mary Russell Mitford: second series, ed. H. F. Chorley. 2 vols, 1872.
The friendships of Mary Russell Mitford in letters from her literary correspondents, ed. A. G. L'Estrange. 2 vols, 1882.
Stories of village and town life: or word pictures of old England, Ed. J. P. Briscoe and E. M. P. Knight. 1915.
Letters, ed. R. B. Johnson. 1925.
PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:
English
Anglican
privately educated
woman writer
poet
dramatist
essayist
novelist
The Star
The Morning Chronicle
European Magazine
The Monthly Magazine
London Magazine
Literary Panorama
The Literary Gazette
Literary Museum
Literary Magnet
Sharpe's London Magazine
Forget-Me-Not
Friendship's Offering
Literary Souvenir
The Amulet
Pledge of Friendship
Winter's Wreath
The Anniversary
The Gem
The Casket
Juvenile Forget-Me-Not
Christmas Box
New Year's Gift
Juvenile Keepsake
Ackermann's Juvenile Forget-Me-Not
Joanna Baillie
Thomas Barnes
Peter Bayley
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Rev. Henry Francis Cary
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Allan Cunningham
Richard Alfred Davenport
Benjamin Robert Haydon
Felicia Hemans
Rev. William Herbert
Mary Howitt
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
William Jerdan
Charles Lamb
Walter Savage Landor
Amelia Opie
Frances Arabella Rowden
Thomas Noon Talfourd
Alaric Alexander Watts
REFERENCE:
DNB; NCBEL; CBEL (3rd ed); DLB.
William Gifford, "Mitford's Poems" Quarterly Review 4 (1810); Poetical Register for 1808-09 (1812), 1810-11 (1814); "Memoirs of Mary Russell Mitford" Monthly Recorder [New York] 1 (June 1813) 175-77; Biographical Dictionary of Living Authors (1816); "Mary Russell Mitford" La Belle Assemblee NS 27 (June 1823) 239-40 [portrait]; Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); Alexander Dyce, Specimens of British Poetesses (1827); Monthly Review (November 1827) 349-53; "Miss Mitford" La Belle Assemblee S3 5 (January, June 1827) 5-10, 243-46; William Maginn, "Gallery of Literary Characters: Mary Russell Mitford" Fraser's Magazine 3 (May 1831) 410 [portrait]; "Miss Mitford" Atheneum [Boston] NS 3 (December 1831) 263-66 [from New Monthly Magazine]; Allan Cunningham, "Literature of the last Fifty Years" The Athenaeum (30 November 1833) 809; Robert Chambers, Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1844); David Macbeth Moir, Poetical Literature of the Past Half-Century (1851); Mary Russell Mitford, Recollections (1852); Frederic Rowton, Female Poets of Great Britain (1853); Illustrated London News 24 (1854) 369-70 [portrait]; Margaret Oliphant, "Mary Russell Mitford" Blackwood's Magazine (June 1854); Illustrated London News 26 (1855) 60; obituary in Gentleman's Magazine NS 43 (April 1855) 428-30; Sarah Josepha Hale, Woman's Record (1855); Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); James T. Fields, in Yesterdays with Authors (1872); Eric S. Robertson, in English Poetesses, a Series of Critical Biographies (1883); Frederic Boase, Modern English Biography (1892-1921); Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism (1901-05); Marjorie Astin, Mary Russell Mitford: her Circle and her Books (1930); Vera G. Watson, Mary Russell Mitford (1949); W. A. Coles, "Mary Russell Mitford: the Inauguration of a Literary Career" Journal of the John Rylands Library 40 (1957) 33-46; Jack, OHEL (1963); Chadwyck-Healey English Poetry Database (1995); Feldman, British Women Poets (1997).
COMMENTARY RECORDS
for Mary Russell Mitford:
BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for Mary Russell Mitford:
AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
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AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
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1. | 1854 Mary Russell Mitford: Mary Russell Mitford, in Introduction to Mitford, Dramatic Works (1854) 1:v-xxxiv. |