Mary Russell Mitford
English Novelist and Dramatist
1787 – 1855 A.D.

Mary Russell Mitford, an English novelist and dramatist. She retains an honorable place in English literature, as the author of Our Village, a series of sketches of village scenes and characters, which possess charm, grace, and humor akin to Jane Austin’s.

Miss Mitford’s life was largely devoted to her father, Dr. George Mitford, a curious character, who lived on the proceeds of his daughter’s literary industry.

Among her dramatic works, five in number, Rienzi was most successful; in America it became popular with Charlotte Cushman as Claudia.

Her Recollections of a Literary Life is a series of causeries about her favorite books. She also published a number of poems, and stories for children.

Her talk was said by her friends. Mrs. Browning and Hungist Horne, to have been even more brilliant and amusing than her books, and her Life and Letters, show her to have been a delightful letter-writer.

~*~

Reference: Famous Women; An Outline of Feminine Achievement Through the Ages With Life Stories of Five Hundred Noted Women By Joseph Adelman. Copyright, 1926 by Ellis M. Lonow Company.