Mary Russell Mitford

Mary Russell Mitford was an English writer and dramatist. She was born in Alresford, Hampshire. Her best-known work is Our rural, a collection of sketches of rural scenery and beautifully rendered individuals inspired by her life in Three Mile Cross, Berkshire. She was the only daughter of George Mitford (or Midford), who appears to have educated as a doctor, and Mary Russell, a descendant of the noble Russell family. She grew up near Jane Austen and knew her when she was younger. Mary Russell...See more

Mary Russell Mitford was an English writer and dramatist. She was born in Alresford, Hampshire. Her best-known work is Our rural, a collection of sketches of rural scenery and beautifully rendered individuals inspired by her life in Three Mile Cross, Berkshire. She was the only daughter of George Mitford (or Midford), who appears to have educated as a doctor, and Mary Russell, a descendant of the noble Russell family. She grew up near Jane Austen and knew her when she was younger. Mary Russell Mitford, ten years old in 1797, won her father a lottery ticket worth £20,000, but by the 1810s, the little family was struggling financially. They lived in huge properties in Reading and then Grazeley (in Sulhamstead Abbots parish) in the 1800s and 1810s, but when the money ran out after 1819, they had to rely on a small portion of the doctor's lost fortune and the income of his daughter's literary success. He is said to have inspired Mary's intense interest in incongruities, vibrant sympathy, self-willed forceful individuality, and tolerance, all of which appear in many of her character drawings. See less