Author: Howitt, Mary
Biography:
Howitt, Mary formerly Botham (1799-1888: ODNB)
Prolific writer, editor, and translator. Born at Coleford, Gloucestershire, she was the daughter of strict Quakers: Samuel Botham, a land surveyor, and Anne (Wood) Botham. She was raised at Uttoxeter, Staffordshire and briefly attended schools at Croydon and Sheffield. In 1821 she married William Howitt (q.v.); in the first twelve years of marriage Mary had nine pregnancies but just three children survived infancy. She began publishing verse in periodicals before producing book-length collections both with William and by herself. Her novel Wood Leighton appeared in 1836, followed by Hymns and Fireside Verses in 1839. The Howitts moved to Esher (Surrey, near London) where two more children were born to them, and Mary succeeded Laetitia Landon (q.v.) as editor of the Drawing Room Scrapbook, earning an annual salary. During a stay in Germany (Heidelberg: 1840-43), she wrote a series of improving works, Tales for the People and their Children, and translated the novels of Frederika Bremer and some of Hans Christian Anderson’s tales. On their return to England, the Howitts left the Society of Friends, became Unitarians (later dabbling in spiritualism), and suffered a financial blow with the bankruptcy of their Howitt’s Journal (1847-48). They continued writing and jointly produced the two-volume Literature and Romance of Northern Europe (1852) shortly before William set off for Australia with two of their sons. He returned in 1854 and by the 1870s they were spending winters in Italy and summers in the Tyrol. After William’s death (1879), Mary became a Roman Catholic. She died at Rome and was buried beside her husband in Rome’s Monte Testaccio cemetery. (ODNB 28 Feb. 2019)