Mary Russell Mitford and her surroundings

In a sunny corner of Hampshire there lies the tiny historic town of Alresford on the gentle slopes of a hill, at whose feet flows the little river Arle which gives its name to t...

The market of old days used to be held in an open space where East Street and West Street meet, near to the Bell Inn, whose gilded sign, in the form of a bas-relief, is displaye...

In one of Miss Mitford’s tales entitled _A Country Barber_ she describes a humble neighbour whose tiny shop adjoined their own “handsome and commodious dwelling.” This tiny shop...

Dr. Mitford, in spite of some really good qualities, was of a careless and thoughtless disposition as regards money matters, and was, unhappily, addicted to games of chance. “He...

Dr. Mitford had been gradually establishing a practice in Reading, where a remarkable cure he had effected was already making his name known, when, as his daughter tells us, he...

“That was my only opportunity of making acquaintance with the mighty ocean in its winter sublimity of tempest and storm; and partly perhaps from the striking and awful nature of...

The “comfortless lodging” mentioned by Miss Mitford was on the Surrey side of Blackfriars Bridge, where Dr. Mitford, it seems, was able to find a refuge from his creditors withi...

After the extraordinary event of the lottery ticket the Mitfords were suddenly placed in a position of opulence, and they joyfully quitted their dingy London lodgings and return...

Monsieur and Madame St. Quintin, on removing the Abbey School from Reading to London, established it in Hans Place, a small oblong square of pleasant-looking houses with a garde...

During her school life Mary Mitford had an opportunity of seeing many of the French refugees of noble birth who had escaped from their country in the commencement of the Reign o...

Dr. Mitford had set his heart upon his daughter’s becoming an “accomplished musician,” in spite of her having, as she tells us, “neither ear, nor taste, nor application.” Her fi...

In the spring of the year 1802 Dr. Mitford purchased an old farm-house with its surrounding fields amounting to about seventy acres, near to the small village of Graseley, which...

In the autumn of the year 1806 Mary Mitford, then eighteen years of age, was taken by her father for a tour in the north of England with a view of introducing her to his relatio...

Before quitting the pleasant society of Lord and Lady Charles Aynsley we should like to introduce an incident in connection with them which took place in the month of February,...

Mary Russel Mitford had from early youth been fond of writing verses upon subjects which had taken her fancy. “No less than three octavo volumes,” she writes, “had I perpetrated...

Among the many names of well-known people that occur in Miss Mitford’s letters of this period is that of Cobbett, to whom she had addressed one of her early odes. He was an inti...

Even the ultra-Whigs, to which Mary and her family belonged, had long ceased to entertain any hopes of him as a benefactor to the human race, and she had declared to Sir William...

In a letter to Sir William Elford dated January, 1812, Mary remarks: “I have lived so little with girls of my own age, and have been so much accustomed to think papa my pleasant...

Miss Mitford owed to her friendship with Sir William Elford her first acquaintance with the artist Haydon. Describing in later years to a friend how this came about, she said: “...

The Mitfords had taken a cottage in Three Mile Cross—a small village about two miles from Graseley, which they supposed at first would be only a temporary abode, but which final...

Miss Mitford’s cottage in Three Mile Cross is practically the same as it was in her day, the chief alterations being that the windows to the front of the house, which were forme...

There is an amusing sketch in the first volume of _Our Village_ entitled “The Talking Lady,” from which we should like to quote a few passages. Its scene is evidently laid in th...

Miss Mitford writes to Sir William Elford on March 5th, 1824: “In spite of your prognostics, I think you will like _Our Village_. It will be out in three weeks or a month.... It...

The framework of these stories—that is all that concerns Miss Mitford herself, who figures not only as the narrator but as an actor in the scenes described—is, for the most part...

Mary Russell Mitford’s love of the drama was awakened in childhood, and at her school in Hans Place it was much developed. “After my return home,” she writes, “came days of eage...

Miss Mitford’s capacity of throwing herself heart and soul into the widely varying subjects upon which she was engaged was truly remarkable. For whilst writing her playful or pa...

“One of the prettiest dwellings in our neighbourhood,” writes Miss Mitford in one of her stories, “is the Lime Cottage at Burley-Hatch. It consists of a low-browed habitation, s...

Mary Russell Mitford visited Southampton in the year 1812, and although only one of her letters written at that time has been preserved it gives us a vivid picture of her impres...

One of the most striking buildings in the beautiful county of Berkshire often visited by Miss Mitford is Ufton Court, a stately manor-house of considerable extent “that stands o...

“Our village continues to stand pretty much where it did, and has undergone as little change in the last two years as any hamlet of its inches in the county.... I have hinted th...

Mary Russell Mitford had strong likes and dislikes. Her American friend Mr. James T. Fields, who knew her well, remarks:[13] “She loathed mere dandies, and there were no epithet...

“Never was a day more congenial to a happy purpose,” she writes. “It was a day made for country weddings and dances on the green—a day of dazzling light, of ardent sunshine fall...

Writing one day in the month of June, she exclaims: “What a glowing, glorious day! Summer in its richest prime, noon in its most sparkling brightness, little white clouds dappli...

As Mary Russell Mitford’s fame as a writer began to spread wider and wider her cottage became a centre of interest and attraction to all those who had learnt to love her works....

In the spring of 1836 Miss Mitford paid a short visit to London. She stayed in the house of her father’s old friend Sergeant Talfourd, No. 56 Russell Square. Her stories were so...

She writes in June, 1835, to Sir William Elford: “I thank you very much, my ever dear and kind friend, for your kind letter, and I rejoice that you like my book. It has been mos...

Writing to her American friend Mr. Fields in December, 1848, after a sharp attack of illness, Miss Mitford says: “But I have many alleviations [to my sufferings] in the general...

The “flitting” was accomplished in September, 1851. “I was compelled to move from the dear old house,” writes Miss Mitford; “not very far; not much further than Cowper when he m...

The winter of 1852-3 was unusually cold, and Miss Mitford suffered much from rheumatism supervening upon the effects of her accident. For many months she was entirely confined t...