03281cam a22003493u 4500 76491 UtSlPG 20260610134753.0 m cr n 260607r20251920utu|||||o|||||||||||||| d UtSlPG en iso639-1 PR Hill, Constance, 1844?-1929 Mary Russell Mitford and her surroundings Salt Lake City, UT : Project Gutenberg, 2025 1 online resource : multiple file formats text txt rdacontent computer c rdamedia online resource cr rdacarrier Release date is 2025-07-13 Fiona Holmes and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) "Mary Russell Mitford and her surroundings" by Constance Hill is a literary biography written in the early 20th century. It presents a warm, anecdote-rich portrait of the author of Our Village, emphasizing her rural imagination, theatrical ambitions, friendships, and brilliant letters. Drawing on Mitford’s own recollections and contemporary voices, it maps the places, people, and social worlds—English villages, Reading, Lyme Regis, and circles of French émigrés—that shaped her life and writing. The opening of the book offers a preface praising Mitford’s sunny temperament, keen eye for nature, and charm as dramatist and letter-writer, then moves into her early life: a loving childhood at Alresford with garden, orchard, and the Newfoundland dog Coe; vivid portraits of village characters like Jacob Giles the cobbler and Will Skinner the barber; and rustic scenes such as a blacksmith-escorted wedding. It follows the family to Reading amid her father’s financial imprudence, includes the child’s first dazzled visit to London, and then a richly detailed sojourn at Lyme Regis—its Great House, panelled chamber, gardens and spring, coastal storms, fossil-collecting walks, and even a dining-room ceiling collapse. After a hasty retreat to London within the “rules” and a sudden lottery win on her tenth birthday, the narrative returns to Reading’s markets and mentors (notably Dr. Valpy), before shifting to Mary’s schooling: the Abbey School’s move to Hans Place, her initial shyness, guidance by the beloved Miss Rowden, a comic French disciplinarian episode, and her secret awakening to theatre and Molière. Supper-table sketches of French émigrés animate the social backdrop, while brief letters and scenes show her voracious reading and early Latin, and introduce Mlle Rose, a Bretonne orphan, and “Betsy,” a new pupil guarded from French influences by her blustering father. (This is an automatically generated summary.) Originally published: London: John Lane, the Bodley Head, 1920 Authors, English -- 19th century -- Biography Mitford, Mary Russell, 1787-1855 Women intellectuals -- Great Britain -- Biography Hill, Ellen G. https://archive.org/details/cu31924013525559/page/n10/mode/1up https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76491 117216 117216