Mary Russell Mitford

Mary Russell Mitford (16 December 1787 - 10 January 1855) was an English poet, playwright, and novelist.

Mary Russell Mitford (1787-1855). Portrait by Benjamin Robert Haydon (1786-1846). Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Life

Overview

Mitford was born at Alresford, Hants. Her father was a physician without practice, selfish and extravagant, who ran through 3 fortunes, his own, his wife's, and his daughter's, and then lived on the industry of the last. After a volume of poems which attracted little notice, she produced her powerful tragedy, Julian. In 1812, what ultimately became the 1t volume of Our Village appeared in the Lady's Magazine. To this 4 additional volumes were added, the last in 1832. In this work Mitford may be said to have created a new branch of literature. Her novel, Belford Regis (1835), is somewhat on the same lines. She added 2 dramas, Rienzi (1828) and Foscari; Atherton, and other tales (1852); and Recollections of a Literary Life. She died at her cottage at Swallowfield, much beloved for her benevolent and simple character, as well as valued for her intellectual powers.

Family

Mitford was born at Airesford, Hampshire, on 16 December 1787, the only child of George Mitford or Midford (descended from an ancient Northumberlandshire family), and of Mary (Russell), the only surviving child of Dr. Richard Russell, a richly beneficed clergyman, who held the livings of Overton and Ash, both in Hampshire, for more than 60 years.

George Mitford, who was 10 years his wife's junior, had been educated for the medical profession, and was a graduate of Edinburgh University. He was clever, selfish, unprincipled, and extravagant, with an unhappy love of speculation, and an equally unfortunate skill at whist. He squandered altogether in his life about £70,000, and finally became entirely dependent on his daughter's literary earnings. William Harness, who knew the family well, and was Miss Mitford's lifelong friend, heartily disliked him, and called him "a detestable old humbug," but his many failings never succeeded in alienating the affections of his wife and daughter.

Youth and education

Mary was a very precocious child, and could read before she was 3 years old. In 1797 she drew a prize in a lottery worth £20,000. The child herself insisted on choosing the number, 2224, because its digits made up the sum of her age. On the strength of it Dr. Mitford built a house at Reading.

Harness remarks the "sedateness and gravity of her face;" in childhood; Miss Sedgwick describes her in 1839 as "truly a little body.... She has a pale gray soul-lit eye, and hair as white as snow;" Hablot Browne spoke of that wonderful wall of forehead;' and both Horne and Miss Gushman mention the wonderful animation of her face. Charles Kingsley asserts that "the glitter and depth of her eyes gave a French or rather Gallic" character to her countenance.

Between 1798 and 1802 the girl was at a good school at 22 Hans Place, London, kept by Mrs. St. Quintin, a French refugee, where Lady Caroline Lamb had been an earlier pupil, and "L.E.L." was later educated. In 1802 Mary settled at home with her parents, and her literary taste began to develop. She read enormously. In 1806 she mastered 55 volumes in 39 days.

Early writing

In 1810 appeared her earliest published work, Miscellaneous Poems.

In the spring of 1810 she made the acquaintance of Sir William Elford, a dilettante painter, and in 1812 began a long correspondence with him . Through him she came to know Haydon, who subsequently painted her portrait. Meanwhile she continued publishing poetry. 'Christina, or the Maid of the South Seas,' appeared in 1811; 'Blanch of Castile,' which had been submitted in manuscript to Coleridge, in 1812; and 'Poems on the Female Character,' dedicated to the third Lord Holland, in 1813. Her poems were severely criticised in the 'Quarterly,' but the volume of 1810 passed into a second edition (1811), and all the volumes met with much success in America. At this period Miss Mitford paid frequent visits to London, and stayed at the house of James Perry, editor of the Morning Chronicle; there she met, among others, Lord Erskine, Sir Samuel Romilly. Dr. Parr, Lord Brougham, and Moore.

By March 1820 Dr. Mitford's irregularities had reduced his family to the utmost poverty, and it was necessary for Mary to turn to literature for the means of livelihood. The household removed to Three Mile Cross, a village on the turnpike road between Reading and Basingstoke, and lived there in an insufficient and meanly furnished labourer's cottage. The largest room was about 8 feet square. Miss Mitford resided there for more than 30 years, allowing herself only one luxury — a flower garden.

Playwriting

She wrote much for the magazines, but soon grew convinced that her talent lay in tragedy, a view in which Coleridge, on reading Blanch of Castile, had encouraged her. Her earliest dramatic efforts were rejected, but Macready, to whom Talfourd gave her an introduction, accepted Julian, and with the great actor in the title-role it was performed at Covent Garden, 15 March 1823. Acted 8 times, it brought her £200. Macready, in his Reminiscences (i. 278), states that the performance made little impression, and was soon forgotten. Neither prologue nor epilogue was introduced into the performance, and that innovation, which soon became the rule, is ascribed to Mitford's influence. A second piece by Mitford, Foscari, with Charles Kemble as the hero, was produced at Covent Garden, 4 November 1826, and was played 15 times. According to her own statement, it was completed and presented to Covent Garden Theatre before the publication in 1821 of Byron's drama on the same subject.

The best of her plays was Rienzi, a poetical tragedy of merit, which was produced at Drury Lane, 9 October 1828. Young played the hero, and Stanfield painted the scenery. It was acted 34 times, and Mitford received £400 from the theatre, besides selling 8,000 copies of the printed play. Its success caused a temporary coolness between Miss Mitford and her friend Talfourd, who fancied that his Ion, which was being performed at the same time, was unduly neglected through Rienzi's popularity. The piece became popular in America, where Charlotte Cushman assumed the part of Claudia.

Another of Miss Mitford's tragedies, Charles I, was rejected by Colman because the lord chamberlain refused it his license, but in 1834, when urgently in need of money, Miss Mitford disposed of it on liberal terms to the manager of the Victoria Theatre, on the Surrey side of the Thames, and beyond the lord chamberlain's jurisdiction. Miss Mitford also wrote Mary Queen of Scots, a scena in English verse, 1831, and an opera libretto, Sadak and Kalascade, produced in 1835, and she contributed several dramatic scenes to the London Magazine and other periodicals.

After passing separately through several editions, her plays were published collectively in 1854 in 2 volumes, with a valuable autobiographical introduction describing the influences under which they were written, and their adventures among the theatrical managers.

Literary success

Happily, the pressing necessity of earning money led Miss Mitford to turn, as she says herself, "from the lofty steep of tragic poetry to the every-day path of village stories.' Her inimitable series of country sketches, drawn from her own experiences at Three Mile Cross, entitled "Our Village," began to appear in 1819 in the Lady's Magazine, a little-known periodical, whose sale was thereby increased from 250 to 2,000. She had previously offered them to Thomas Campbell for the New Monthly Magazine, but he rejected them as unsuitable to the dignity of his pages. The sketches had an enormous success, and were collected in 5 volumes, published respectively in 1824, 1826, 1828, 1830, and 1832. Editions of the whole came out in 1843, 1848, 1852, and 1856, and selections appeared in 1870, 1879,1883,1884, 1886, 1891, and 1893 (edited by Mrs. Richmond Ritchie, with illustrations by Hugh Thomson).

The tales at once made Miss Mitford famous. Charles Lamb declared that nothing so fresh and characteristic had appeared for a long time; Christopher North spoke of their "genuine rural spirit;" Mrs. Hemans was cheered by them in sickness; Mrs. S.C. Hall acknowledges that they suggested her own Sketches of Irish Character; Mrs. Browning called Miss Mitford 'a sort of prose Crabbe in the sun;' while Harriet Martineau looked upon her as the originator of the new style of "graphic description."

Distinguished visitors crowded to Mitford's cottage. Passing coachmen and post-boys pointed out to travellers the localities in the village described in the book, and children were named after Miss Mitford's village urchins and pet greyhounds. She was feted on her visits to the metropolis. In 1836 Mr. Kenyon introduced her to Elizabeth Barrett, afterwards Mrs. Browning, and the acquaintance speedily ripened into friendship.

Mitford was an admirable talker; both Mrs. Browning and Mr. Home preferred her conversation to her books. Mr, Fields called her voice "a beautiful chime of silver bells.: About her friends she was always enthusiastic, and to the last respected her father's memory. She was very widely read in English literature, and was catholic and unconventional in her literary judgment.

Mitford's popularity enabled her to command high prices for her work. Writing to Mitford in 1832, Mrs. Trollope told her that "Whittaker (the publisher) told me some time ago that your name would sell anything." In 1835 Miss Mitford remarked: "It is one of the signs of the times that a periodical selling for three halfpence [Chambers's Edinburgh Journal] should engage so high-priced a writer as myself." But her mother died on 1 January 1830, and her father's increasing extravagances kept her poor. She confessed to Miss Barrett that "although want, actual want has not come, yet fear and anxiety have never been absent." Mitford still wrote with energy, but the strain injured her style.

On 11 December. 1842 her father died. His heavy liabilities were met by a public subscription, which left a surplus to be added to the daughter's narrow income: "I have not bought a bonnet, a cloak, a gown, hardly a pair of gloves, for four years" (10 Jan. 1842).

In 1851 Mitford moved to her last residence, a little cottage at Swallowfield, near Reading, "placed where three roads meet" (Payn). Though her cheerfulness and industry were unabated, her health was broken by her earlier anxieties, and she was crippled with rheumatism. In 1852 she published Recollections of a Literary Life, or Books Places, and People, 3 volumes of delightful gossip, much of it autobiographical. Other editions came out in 1853, 1857, and 1859. Her last production, Atherton, and other Tales, published in 1854, won high praise from John Ruskin.

Her death, hastened by a carriage accident, took place at Swallowfield in January 1855. On the 18th she was buried in the village churchyard.

Writing

In 1810 appeared her 1st published work, Miscellaneous Poems. The volume, dedicated to the Hon. William Herbert, is a collection of fugitive pieces, written at an earlier period. Some were in honor of her father's friends, others recorded her own tastes and pursuits, and illustrate her love of nature and the country.

Genest (Hist. of the Stage, ix. 201-2, 384-5, 454-5) finds her plays meritorious, but dull. They met with the approval of Miss Edgeworth, Joanna Baillie, and Mrs. Hemans.

Her inimitable series of country sketches, drawn from her own experiences at Three Mile Cross, entitled "Our Village," may be said to have laid the foundation of a branch of literature hitherto untried. The sketches resemble Dutch paintings in their fidelity of detail, and in the brightness and quaint humour of their style. Chorley (Authors of England) calls Mitford the Claude of English village life.

A novel, Belford Regis, or Sketches of a Country Town (viz. Reading), appeared in 1835, and, although Mrs. Browning ranked it with Miss Mitford's best work, it plainly lacks the spontaneity and charm of Our Village. A 2nd and 3rd edition appeared respectively in 1846 and 1849.

A few months before her death Walter Savage Landor addressed to her some eloquent verses in praise of her 'pleasant tales.' Nor could, he concluded, any tell

The country's purer charms so well

As Mary Mitford.

Her familiarity with French writers is traceable in her clear English style. She was an inveterate letter writer, and corresponded with scores of persons whom she never met. Her letters, scribbled on innumerable small scraps of paper, are fully as attractive as her books. The most interesting are those written to Sir William Elford and Miss Barrett. But her correspondents also included Macready, Mrs. Hemans, Mrs. Trollope, Dyce, Charles Boner, Allan Cunningham, Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall, Haydon, Douglas Jerrold, Mary Howitt, Harriet Martineau, Mrs. Jameson, and Barry Cornwall. Vexatious difficulties were placed by her servants, her residuary legatees, in the way of the publication of the letters, but they were finally overcome by Mr. L'Estrange, and her correspondence was issued in 1870.

In addition to the works already mentioned, Miss Mitford published:

1. 'Dramatic Scenes, Sonnets, and other Poems,' 1827.
2. 'Stories of American Life,' 1830.
3. 'American Stories for Children,' 1832.

She contributed to Mrs. Johnstone's Edinburgh Tales, the London Magazine, the Reading Mercury, Mr. S.C. Hall's Amulet, a religious annual (1826-36), Mrs. S.C. Hall's Juvenile Forget-me-not, and others. She edited Finden's Tableaux, a fashionable annual, from 1838 to 1841, and a selection from Dumas for the young, 1846.

Recognition

In 1837 she received a civil list pension of £100 a year.

The best portrait of her was that painted by Lucas in 1852, now in the National Portrait Gallery. It was engraved by S. Freeman. There is a drawing in crayon also executed by Lucas in 1852. Haydon's portrait is exaggerated and unsatisfactory. Her figure appears in outline by D. Maclise in 'Fraser's Magazine,' May 1831, with a notice by Maginn.

Publications

Poetry

• Poems. London: A.J. Valpy, for Longman, Hurst, Rees, & Orme, 1810; London: A.J. Valpy, for F.C. & J. Rivington, 1811.
• Christina, the Maid of the South Seas: A poem. London: A.J. Valpy, for F.C. & J. Rivington, 1811.
• Blanche of Castille. 1812.
• Watlington Hill: A poem. London: A.J. Valpy, 1812.
• Narrative Poems on the Female Character. London: A.J. Valpy, 1813; New York: Eastburn, Kirk, 1813.
• Dramatic Scenes, Sonnets, and Poems. London: G.B. Whittaker, 1827.
• Mary, Queen of Scots: A scene in English verse. 1831.

Plays

• Julian: A tragedy, in five acts. London: G. & W.B. Whittaker, 1823.
• Foscari: A tragedy. . London: G.B. Whittaker, 1826.
• Foscari and Julian: Tragedies. London: G.B. Whittaker, 1827.
• Rienzi: A tragedy, in five acts. London: J. Cumberland, 1828.
• Charles the First: An historical tragedy, in five acts. London: J. Duncombe, 1834.
• Sadak and Kalasrade; or, The waters of oblivion: A romantic opera. London: S.G. Fairbrother, 1836.
• Dramatic Works. (2 volumes), London: Hurst & Blackett, 1854.

Short fiction

• Our Village: Sketches of rural character and scenery. (5 volumes), London: G. & W.B. Whittaker, 1824-1832.
  • Selected Stories from Our Village. London & Glasgow: Blackie & Son, 1919.
• Lights and Shadows of American Life. (3 volumes), London: H. Colburn / R. Bentley, 1832; London & New York: Macmillan, 1893. Volume I, Volume III
• Belford Regis; or, Sketches of a country town. (3 volumes), London: R. Bentley, 1835; London: R. Bentley / Edinburgh: Bell & Bradfute / Dublin: Cumming & Ferguson, 1846. Volume I, Volume II
• Country Stories. London: Saunders & Otley, 1837; Philadelphia: Carey, Lea, & Blanchard, 1838; Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1970.
• Atherton, and other tales. (3 volumes), London: Hurst & Blackett, 1854; Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1854. Volume I, Volume II, Volume III
• Stories of Village and Town Life; or, Word pictures of old England (edited by John Potter Briscoe & E.M.P. Knight). London: Gay & Hancock, 1908.

Non-fiction

• Recollections of a Literary Life; or, Books, places, and people. (3 volumes), London: R. Bentley, 1852. Volume I

Collected editions

• Works: Prose and verse. Philadelphia: J. Crissy, 1841.

Letters

• The Life of Mary Russell Mitford: In a selection from her letters (edited by Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange). (3 volumes), London: R. Bentley, 1870
  • published in U.S. as The Life of Mary Russell Mitford: Told by herself in letters to her friends. New York: Harper, 1870.
• Letters: Second series (edited by H.F. Chorley). (2 volumes), London: R. Bentley & Son, 1872.
• The Friendships of Mary Russell Mitford: As recorded in letters from her literary correspondents (edited by Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange). (2 volumes), London: Hurst & Blackett, 1882; New York: Harper, 1882.
• Correpondence with Charles Boner and John Ruskin (edited by Elizabeth Lee). London: T.F. Unwin, 1914; Chicago: Rand McNally, 1915.
• Letters (edited by R.B. Johnson). London: John Lane, 1925.
• Women of Letters: Selected letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Mary Russell Mitford (edited by Meredith B Raymond & Mary Rose Sullivan). Boston: Twayne, 1987.
• My Garden: Selected from the letters and recollections of Mary Russell Mitford (edited by Robyn Marsack & Pamela Kay). Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1990.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

Tajima Mary Russell Mitford Audiobook Short Story

See also

• List of British poets
• List of English-language playwrights

References

•  Lee, Elizabeth (1894) "Mitford, Mary Russell" in Lee, Sidney Dictionary of National Biography 38 London: Smith, Elder, pp. 84-86  . Wikisource, Web, Aug. 23, 2016.

External links

Poems

• Mary Russell Mitford at Poetry Atlas (3 poems)
• Mary Russell Mitford (1787-1855) info & 8 poems at English Poetry, 1579-1830
• Mary Russell Mitford at AllPoetry (9 poems)

Books

• Works by Mary Russell Mitford at Project Gutenberg
• Mary Russell Mitford at the Online Books Page
• Mary Russell Mitford at Amazon.com

About

• Russell Mitford in the Encyclopædia Britannica
• Mary Russell Mitford at Encyclopedia.com
• Mitford, Mary Russell in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the Dictionary of National Biography (edited by Leslie Stephen & Sidney Lee). London: Smith, Elder, 1885-1900. Original article is at: Mitford, Mary Russell