Mary Berry (3) (1763–1852)

Mary Berry was born to a middle-class family in Yorkshire and had a younger sister. The girls lost their mother at an early age and were cared for by their grandmother in Chiswick, London. They were educated by a governess and then by their own reading. In 1783, Robert Berry took his two young daughters travelling in Holland, Switzerland, and Italy. Back in England, they became close friends of Sir Horace Walpole, spending time at his estate of Strawberry Hill, Twickenham. Mary began writing as a young woman. Her works included a comedy, Fashionable Friends; social commentary and travel writing such as England and France, a Comparative View of the Social Conditions in both Countries (1844); and a collected edition of the Works of Horace Walpole (1798), which she edited. She was a prolific letter writer and her correspondents included Caroline of Brunswick, Princess of Wales; Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire; Lady Elizabeth Stuart; and Madame de Staël. Her extensive journals were edited and published by Lady Theresa Lewis in 1865.