Author: Mitford, Mary Russell
Biography:
Mitford, Mary Russell (1787-1855: ODNB)
Born at Alresford, Hampshire, she was the only surviving child of George Mitford (or Midford), a surgeon, and Mary (Russell) Mitford, a wealthy heiress. George Mitford was a spendthrift and gambler and, as he worked his way through his wife’s fortune, the family’s financial difficulties led to frequent moves—to Reading, Lyme Regis, and London. In 1797 he won £20000 on a lottery ticket (using numbers chosen by his daughter) and, financially stable for a time, they moved to Bertram House in Reading. She was sent to M. de St. Quintin’s school in Chelsea (1798-1802) where she excelled particularly at languages. Back in Reading, she began seriously to write poetry and her early books sold well. Through her father, she obtained advice from Coleridge (q.v.) for her Christina (1811). In 1811 when her father was imprisoned for debt and the family forced to move to a small cottage south of Reading, she began to think of writing as a means of support for her family. Although she continued to publish verse, she complained to a friend “nothing seems to me so tiresome and unsatisfactory as writing poetry” (L’Estrange), and she experimented with writing plays. Ultimately these were successful but she found the process of negotiating for their production fraught and time-consuming. In 1824 she began publishing in volume form tales that had been issued in the Lady’s Magazine. The series, Our Village (1824-32), proved highly popular and made her name. Her mother died in 1830 but Mitford continued to support her extravagant father until his death in 1842. Mitford had a large circle of friends--her witty and lively letters to them are a mine of information about contemporary literary culture—and she was also a keen gardener. She suffered increasingly poor health at the end of her life, was paralysed following a fall from her pony in 1852, and died at home in Swallowfield, Berkshire. (ODNB 22 Apr 2020; A. G. L’Estrange, The Life of Mary Russell Mitford, 3 vols [1870])
Other Names:
- Miss Mitford