Mary Russell Mitford

Mary Russell Mitford 1787-1855, English author. Her first volume of poetry (1810) sold well despite adverse criticism. Later she turned to playwriting, writing one notable success, Rienzi (1828). Our Village (5 vol., 1824-32), a series of gently humorous rural sketches, established her reputation and gained for her a wide following. Her later works include a novel, Belford Regis (1835); other series of tales, such as Atherton (1854); and Recollections of a Literary Life (1852).

Bibliography: See her letters (ed. by A. G. K. L'Estrange, 2 vol., 1870).

Mitford, Mary Russell (1787–1855), published several volumes of poems. Her dramas include Julian (1823), Foscari (1826), and Rienzi (1828). She is best remembered for the series of sketches and stories which made up Our Village (1832), based on Three Mile Cross, near Reading. This was followed by Belford Regis (1835), a portrait of Reading; Country Stories (1837); Recollections of a Literary Life (1852); and Atherton, and Other Tales (1854), a novel. Her fluent letters, to Lamb, Haydon, Horne, Ruskin, Elizabeth Barrett (Browning), W. S. Landor, and others were published in a selection ed. A. G. L'Estrange (3 vols, 1870) and in Letters of M. R. Mitford, 2nd Series, ed. H. Chorley (2 vols, 1872).