Mary Russell Mitford Biography

Dromo's Den

MITFORD, Mary Russell (1787-1855). An English authoress, born at Asresford, Hampshire, Dec. 16,1787. In 1797 she drew £20,000 in a lottery, with a part of which her father built a house at Reading. She was sent to a good London school for a short time (1798–1802) and then returned to her father's house. At this time she was reading extensively. In 1810 she published Miscellaneous Poems, which were immediately followed by other volumes (1811, 1812, 1813). The family, reduced to poverty as a result of the father's improvidence, moved in 1820 to a laborer's cottage at Three Mile Cross, a village near Reading. For a living she now began writing for the magazines and the stage. Among her plays (tragedies), which were moderately successful, are Julian (1823), Foscari (1826), and Rienzi (1828). In the meantime she had taken to writing sketches of village life as she had observed it. They were published (5 vols., 1824–32) in installments, under the title Our Village. These descriptive pieces possess charm, grace, and humor akin to Jane Austen's. They were followed by the more regular novel of country life, Belford Regis (1835), and, after a long interval, by Atherton and Other Tales (1854). In 1851 Miss Mitford removed to a near-by cottage at Swallowfield, where she died, Jan. 10, 1855.

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XVI (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 40.