Lifespan: 1787- 1855
Nationality: English
Genres:
Types of Work: Novels, Poetry, Drama
Contemporaries: Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Style: Spontaneous humor; quick wit; country settings,
Bio: Mary Russell Mitford was born December 16, 1787 in Hampshire, England. She was the only daughter of Dr. George Mitford who quickly lost the family's fortune, including 20,000 pounds that Mary had won in a lottery at the age of 10. Mary was an intelligent child who could read before she was three years old. She was educated for 4 years at the same school that Letitia Elizabeth Landon had attended.
After the money was gone, the family lived on the proceeds of Mary's writings. Mary was devoted to her father, neglecting her social life in order to care for him, and writing tirelessly to support him.
Her first attempt at novel writing was Our Village, a series of village stories based on her life in Three Mile Cross, a village in Berkshire, where the family moved in 1820. The stories were extremely successful and Mary published five volumes between 1824-1832.
She died January 10, 1855 after being injured in a road accident.
Novels:
Watlington Hill
Our Village
Belford Regis; or, Sketches of a Country Town (in three volumes)
Country Stories
Atherton, and Other Tales (three volumes)