Mary Russell Mitford (1787–1855)

I really liked this book which I read slowly, only a couple of chapters a night before I went to sleep. Yes, the style of writing is old-fashioned but oh! how they could write in those days. I would like to have lived in those days when life was in close touch with nature. I think we've lost that connection now. I'm also envious of the number and kinds of flowers that the author and her friends could grow in their gardens or even find growing wild. The second last entry about haying really touched a chord too because of the way the June weather proceeded which seems just like the June weather we've experienced in Manitoba.… (more)

A set of charming, lively sketches of English rural life in the mid-19th century. A little bit chocolate-boxish, but not cloying: Here and there we get a sharp little reminder that the delightful Berkshire countryside is a place where farm labourers (male and female) have to earn their living through monotonous, back-breaking work in the fields. Under the persona of the slightly vague, dog-loving, botanising Olde-English spinster, you can see that Miss Mitford was a serious, professional writer who knew exactly what she was doing and adapted her style perfectly to the market. Not surprising when you remember that she was writing this stuff for ladies' magazines to keep the family finances afloat, while her real interest was in getting her historical tragedies performed on the London stage (which she did, quite successfully, too).

I downloaded this from Gutenberg chiefly because I was interested in Miss M as a close friend of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. But she was clearly an interesting character in her own right, too. I think these sketches would be worth a look for anyone interested in the English countryside in the first half of the nineteenth century, at a point when large-scale industrialised farming was still getting going, there were no railways to take milk to London, and there was still plenty of relatively unspoilt common land where you could pick wild flowers.
(The 1893 edition available on Gutenberg is only a small selection from the original five volumes, but it does include an interesting, if slightly pedestrian, biographical sketch by Thackeray's daughter, Anne Ritchie.)… (more)