Listings for Reader:
Mary Russell Mitford
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Caroline Clive : The Great Drought
["The Great Drought"] is 'full of a truth like that of Defoe... that story might be bound up with the History of the Great Plague.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Serial / periodical
Caroline Clive : The Queen's Ball: A Poem
'I am quite sure that you felt impelled to write these striking verses - that they would be written, that they, so to say, wrote themselves - & I rejoice at it since by non-exercise it is certainly a faculty that deserts us, & you are too truly a poetess to be lost to literature even through great domestic happiness...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Henri Balzac : La Recherche de L'Absolu
'[Balzac's] short works although not new are exquisite - La Recherche de L'Absolu- Eugenie Grandet- Modeste Mignon- The last good cheap English books that I remember were the holy verses by Dr. Kitto, & Duffy's Irish Songs & Ballads- For my own part I have been reading 21 volumes of Mirabeau & about as long of Memoires of that great statesman... What a story- & what a man! If you never read Lucas Montigny's Memoires from Mirabeau sa famille & ses ecrits. Do I conjure you. It is the most graphic book in that language of graphic memoires...Macaulay's book is very able- but one wished to find a greater sympathy especially with misfortune - He really likes nobody except that odious Dutchman.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Henri Balzac : Eugenie Grandet
'[Balzac's] short works although not new are exquisite - La Recherche de L'Absolu- Eugenie Grandet- Modeste Mignon- The last good cheap English books that I remember were the holy verses by Dr. Kitto, & Duffy's Irish Songs & Ballads- For my own part I have been reading 21 volumes of Mirabeau & about as long of Memoires of that great statesman... What a story- & what a man! If you never read Lucas Montigny's Memoires from Mirabeau sa famille & ses ecrits. Do I conjure you. It is the most graphic book in that language of graphic memoires...Macaulay's book is very able- but one wished to find a greater sympathy especially with misfortune - He really likes nobody except that odious Dutchman.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Henri Balzac : Modeste Mignon
'[Balzac's] short works although not new are exquisite - La Recherche de L'Absolu- Eugenie Grandet- Modeste Mignon- The last good cheap English books that I remember were the holy verses by Dr. Kitto, & Duffy's Irish Songs & Ballads- For my own part I have been reading 21 volumes of Mirabeau & about as long of Memoires of that great statesman... What a story- & what a man! If you never read Lucas Montigny's Memoires from Mirabeau sa famille & ses ecrits. Do I conjure you. It is the most graphic book in that language of graphic memoires...Macaulay's book is very able- but one wished to find a greater sympathy especially with misfortune - He really likes nobody except that odious Dutchman.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Dr Kitto : holy verses
'[Balzac's] short works although not new are exquisite - La Recherche de L'Absolu- Eugenie Grandet- Modeste Mignon- The last good cheap English books that I remember were the holy verses by Dr. Kitto, & Duffy's Irish Songs & Ballads- For my own part I have been reading 21 volumes of Mirabeau & about as long of Memoires of that great statesman... What a story- & what a man! If you never read Lucas Montigny's Memoires from Mirabeau sa famille & ses ecrits. Do I conjure you. It is the most graphic book in that language of graphic memoires...Macaulay's book is very able- but one wished to find a greater sympathy especially with misfortune - He really likes nobody except that odious Dutchman.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Duffy : Irish Songs and Ballads
'[Balzac's] short works although not new are exquisite - La Recherche de L'Absolu- Eugenie Grandet- Modeste Mignon- The last good cheap English books that I remember were the holy verses by Dr. Kitto, & Duffy's Irish Songs & Ballads- For my own part I have been reading 21 volumes of Mirabeau & about as long of Memoires of that great statesman... What a story- & what a man! If you never read Lucas Montigny's Memoires from Mirabeau sa famille & ses ecrits. Do I conjure you. It is the most graphic book in that language of graphic memoires...Macaulay's book is very able- but one wished to find a greater sympathy especially with misfortune - He really likes nobody except that odious Dutchman.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Mirabeau :
'[Balzac's] short works although not new are exquisite - La Recherche de L'Absolu- Eugenie Grandet- Modeste Mignon- The last good cheap English books that I remember were the holy verses by Dr. Kitto, & Duffy's Irish Songs & Ballads- For my own part I have been reading 21 volumes of Mirabeau & about as long of Memoires of that great statesman... What a story- & what a man! If you never read Lucas Montigny's Memoires from Mirabeau sa famille & ses ecrits. Do I conjure you. It is the most graphic book in that language of graphic memoires...Macaulay's book is very able- but one wished to find a greater sympathy especially with misfortune - He really likes nobody except that odious Dutchman.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Lucas Montigny : Memoires de Mirabeau sa famille et ses ecrits
'[Balzac's] short works although not new are exquisite - La Recherche de L'Absolu- Eugenie Grandet- Modeste Mignon- The last good cheap English books that I remember were the holy verses by Dr. Kitto, & Duffy's Irish Songs & Ballads- For my own part I have been reading 21 volumes of Mirabeau & about as long of Memoires of that great statesman... What a story- & what a man! If you never read Lucas Montigny's Memoires from Mirabeau sa famille & ses ecrits. Do I conjure you. It is the most graphic book in that language of graphic memoires...Macaulay's book is very able- but one wished to find a greater sympathy especially with misfortune - He really likes nobody except that odious Dutchman.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Thomas Babington Macaulay : The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second
'[Balzac's] short works although not new are exquisite - La Recherche de L'Absolu- Eugenie Grandet- Modeste Mignon- The last good cheap English books that I remember were the holy verses by Dr. Kitto, & Duffy's Irish Songs & Ballads- For my own part I have been reading 21 volumes of Mirabeau & about as long of Memoires of that great statesman... What a story- & what a man! If you never read Lucas Montigny's Memoires from Mirabeau sa famille & ses ecrits. Do I conjure you. It is the most graphic book in that language of graphic memoires...Macaulay's book is very able- but one wished to find a greater sympathy especially with misfortune - He really likes nobody except that odious Dutchman.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Thomas Percy : Reliques of Ancient English Poetry
Mary Russell Mitford to Elzabeth Barrett, 13 October 1836: 'I have just read your delightful ballad. My earliest book was "Percy's Reliques," the delight of my childhood; and after them came Scott's "Minstrelsy of the Borders," the favourite of my youth; so that I am prepared to love ballads [...] Are you a great reader of the old English drama? I am -- preferring it to every other sort of reading; of course admitting, and regretting, the grossness of the age; but that, from habit, one skips, without a thought just as I should over so much Greek or Hebrew which I knew I could not comprehend. have you read Victor Hugo's Plays? (he also is one of my naughty pets), and his "Notre Dame?" I admit the bad taste of these, the excess; but the power and the pathos are to me indescribably great. And then he has [...] made the French a new language. He has accomplished this partly by going back to the old fountains, Froissart, &c. Again, these old Chronicles are great books of mine.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Walter Scott : Minstrelsy of the Scottish Borders
Mary Russell Mitford to Elzabeth Barrett, 13 October 1836: 'I have just read your delightful ballad. My earliest book was "Percy's Reliques," the delight of my childhood; and after them came Scott's "Minstrelsy of the Borders," the favourite of my youth; so that I am prepared to love ballads [...] Are you a great reader of the old English drama? I am -- preferring it to every other sort of reading; of course admitting, and regretting, the grossness of the age; but that, from habit, one skips, without a thought just as I should over so much Greek or Hebrew which I knew I could not comprehend. have you read Victor Hugo's Plays? (he also is one of my naughty pets), and his "Notre Dame?" I admit the bad taste of these, the excess; but the power and the pathos are to me indescribably great. And then he has [...] made the French a new language. He has accomplished this partly by going back to the old fountains, Froissart, &c. Again, these old Chronicles are great books of mine.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
: 'old English [i.e. Renaissance] drama'
Mary Russell Mitford to Elzabeth Barrett, 13 October 1836: 'I have just read your delightful ballad. My earliest book was "Percy's Reliques," the delight of my childhood; and after them came Scott's "Minstrelsy of the Borders," the favourite of my youth; so that I am prepared to love ballads [...] Are you a great reader of the old English drama? I am -- preferring it to every other sort of reading; of course admitting, and regretting, the grossness of the age; but that, from habit, one skips, without a thought just as I should over so much Greek or Hebrew which I knew I could not comprehend. have you read Victor Hugo's Plays? (he also is one of my naughty pets), and his "Notre Dame?" I admit the bad taste of these, the excess; but the power and the pathos are to me indescribably great. And then he has [...] made the French a new language. He has accomplished this partly by going back to the old fountains, Froissart, &c. Again, these old Chronicles are great books of mine.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Victor Hugo : plays
Mary Russell Mitford to Elzabeth Barrett, 13 October 1836: 'I have just read your delightful ballad. My earliest book was "Percy's Reliques," the delight of my childhood; and after them came Scott's "Minstrelsy of the Borders," the favourite of my youth; so that I am prepared to love ballads [...] Are you a great reader of the old English drama? I am -- preferring it to every other sort of reading; of course admitting, and regretting, the grossness of the age; but that, from habit, one skips, without a thought just as I should over so much Greek or Hebrew which I knew I could not comprehend. have you read Victor Hugo's Plays? (he also is one of my naughty pets), and his "Notre Dame?" I admit the bad taste of these, the excess; but the power and the pathos are to me indescribably great. And then he has [...] made the French a new language. He has accomplished this partly by going back to the old fountains, Froissart, &c. Again, these old Chronicles are great books of mine.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Victor Hugo : Notre-Dame de Paris
Mary Russell Mitford to Elzabeth Barrett, 13 October 1836: 'I have just read your delightful ballad. My earliest book was "Percy's Reliques," the delight of my childhood; and after them came Scott's "Minstrelsy of the Borders," the favourite of my youth; so that I am prepared to love ballads [...] Are you a great reader of the old English drama? I am -- preferring it to every other sort of reading; of course admitting, and regretting, the grossness of the age; but that, from habit, one skips, without a thought just as I should over so much Greek or Hebrew which I knew I could not comprehend. have you read Victor Hugo's Plays? (he also is one of my naughty pets), and his "Notre Dame?" I admit the bad taste of these, the excess; but the power and the pathos are to me indescribably great. And then he has [...] made the French a new language. He has accomplished this partly by going back to the old fountains, Froissart, &c. Again, these old Chronicles are great books of mine.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Jean Froissart : Chronicles
Mary Russell Mitford to Elzabeth Barrett, 13 October 1836: 'I have just read your delightful ballad. My earliest book was "Percy's Reliques," the delight of my childhood; and after them came Scott's "Minstrelsy of the Borders," the favourite of my youth; so that I am prepared to love ballads [...] Are you a great reader of the old English drama? I am -- preferring it to every other sort of reading; of course admitting, and regretting, the grossness of the age; but that, from habit, one skips, without a thought just as I should over so much Greek or Hebrew which I knew I could not comprehend. have you read Victor Hugo's Plays? (he also is one of my naughty pets), and his "Notre Dame?" I admit the bad taste of these, the excess; but the power and the pathos are to me indescribably great. And then he has [...] made the French a new language. He has accomplished this partly by going back to the old fountains, Froissart, &c. Again, these old Chronicles are great books of mine.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett : 'The Poet's Vow'
Mary Russell Mitford to Elzabeth Barrett, 13 October 1836: 'I have just read your delightful ballad. My earliest book was "Percy's Reliques," the delight of my childhood; and after them came Scott's "Minstrelsy of the Borders," the favourite of my youth; so that I am prepared to love ballads [...] Are you a great reader of the old English drama? I am -- preferring it to every other sort of reading; of course admitting, and regretting, the grossness of the age; but that, from habit, one skips, without a thought just as I should over so much Greek or Hebrew which I knew I could not comprehend. have you read Victor Hugo's Plays? (he also is one of my naughty pets), and his "Notre Dame?" I admit the bad taste of these, the excess; but the power and the pathos are to me indescribably great. And then he has [...] made the French a new language. He has accomplished this partly by going back to the old fountains, Froissart, &c. Again, these old Chronicles are great books of mine.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Serial / periodical
Jean Racine : Letters
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett, 1 February 1838: 'I have just been reading Racine's "Letters," and Boileau's. How much one should like both, if it were not for their slavish servile devotion to the king (and I think it was real), and to that odious woman Madame de Maintenon.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Nicolas Boileau Despreaux : Letters
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett, 1 February 1838: 'I have just been reading Racine's "Letters," and Boileau's. How much one should like both, if it were not for their slavish servile devotion to the king (and I think it was real), and to that odious woman Madame de Maintenon.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
William Harrison Ainsworth : Jack Sheppard: A Romance
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett, 30 January 1840: 'I have been reading "Jack Sheppard," and have been struck by the great danger, in these times, of representing authority so constantly and fearfully in the wrong, so tyrannous, so devilish, as the author has been pleased to portray it in "Jack Sheppard" [...] Of course Mr Ainsworth had no such design, but such is the effect; and as the millions who see it represented at the minor theatres will not distinguish between now and a hundred years back, all the Chartists in the land are less dangerous than this nightmare of a book, and I, Radical as I am, lament any additional temptations to outbreak, with all its train of horrors.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Captain Frederick Marryat, R.N. : novels
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett, 3 March 1840: 'I had a kind message from Captain Marryat once [...] but I have never seen him. Without being one of his indiscriminate admirers, I like parts of his books (some of which I have read to my father), and have been told that they have done good in the profession -- suggestions thrown out in them having been taken up and acted upon by the Lords of the Admiralty'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Samuel Laman Blanchard : Life and Literary Remains of L.E.L.
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett, 20 June 1841: 'I have been reading Blanchard's life of poor L.E.L. [...] The book is to me deeply affecting. She was a fine creature thrown away'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Leigh Hunt : Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 25 October 1841: 'I never read Leigh Hunt's book [...] because (now comes a foolish reason) I had understood that he said cruel things & ungrateful of poor Lord Byron [...] Lately, wishing to think Leigh Hunt above that shame, I have been wishing myself to get the book & make it out "not so bad". Strange, that you shd read it only now! -- just now!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Johann Heinrich Jung-Stilling : Theory of Pneumatology
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 1 December 1841: 'Mrs Niven may keep the Pneumatology as long, just as long, as she pleases. I am glad she cares to look into it. I am pleased that the first glance into it has interested [italics]you[end italics].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
: daily newspapers
Mary Russell Mitford to William Harness, February 1842: 'My poor father has passed this winter in a miserable state of health and spirits. His eyesight fails him now so completely that he cannot even read ... the newspaper. Accordingly, I have not only every day gone through the daily paper, debates and all ... but after that, I have read to him from dark till bedtime'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Newspaper
Frances Trollope : The Blue Belles of England
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett, 9 January 1842: 'My dear love -- I have just looked through the Blue Belles -- and so far as I can guess at Mrs Trollope's people [...] I should say that Lady Dort was Mrs Skinner of Portland Place -- who is really quite as absurd if not more so [goes on to identify possible originals of other characters in text]'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Frances Burney : Diary and Letters (Volume 1)
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett, March 1842: 'I have only read the first volume of Madame D'Arblay's "Diary." Dr Johnson appears to the greatest possible advantage [...] and Mrs Thrale -- oh that warm heart! that lively sweetness! My old governess knew her as Mrs Piozzi, in Wales [...] As to the little Burney, I don't like her at all [...] A girl of the world -- a woman of the world [...] thought clearly and evidently of nothing on this earth but herself and "Evelina."'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
H. F. Chorley : Music and Manners
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett, 2 March 1842: 'Since writing to you yesterday, my beloved friend, I have read in H. F. C[horley]'s "Music and Manners" the account of a visit which he made to Madame d'Abrantes, I think in '39 [goes on to relate anecdote given]'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Unknown
Elizabeth Barrett : letter to Mary Russell Mitford
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett, ?27 March 1842: 'I made my father happy in reading what you say of Sir Robert [Peel]: his eyes brightened like diamonds at the sound. For my part, I incline to think with one of Miss Edgeworth's heroines, that "he cannot be so very artful as is said, because everybody does say so."'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Manuscript: Letter
: speeches of Daniel O'Connell
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett, ?27 March 1842: 'I remember a few years ago reading speeches by O'Connell in one of the Irish papers, which, with the faults of Irish oratory, had yet life and power.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Newspaper
Elizabeth Barrett : 'Some Account of the Greek Christian Poets'
Elizabeth Barrett to Hugh Stuart Boyd, 2 April 1842: 'As to your kind desire to hear whatever in the way of favorable remark I have gathered for fruit of my papers [on the Greek Christian poets], I put on a veil and tell you that Mr Kenyon thought it well done altho' "labor thrown away from the unpopularity of the subject" -- that Miss Mitford was very much pleased [...] that Mrs Jamieson read them "with great pleasure" unconsciously of the author, -- & that Mr Horne the poet & Mr Browning the poet were not behind in approbation! Mr Browning is said to be learned in Greek [...] & of Mr Horne I should suspect something similar. Miss Mitford & Mrs Jamieson altho' very gifted & highly cultivated women are not Graecians & therefore judge the papers simply as English compositions. 'The single unfavorable opinion is Mr Hunter's who thinks that the criticisms are not given with either sufficient seriousness or diffidence, & that there is a painful sense of effort through the whole.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Serial / periodical
Scott : 'Tom Cringle's Log'
Mary Russell Mitford to Lucy Olivia Anderson, 12 January 1842: 'In reading "Tom Cringle's Log" to my father, the other day, I find that Mr Scott, the author, speaks of the Speaker of the House of Assembly in Jamaica as the handsomest and most agreeable man in the island. Now, he must have been Miss [Elizabeth] Barrett's uncle, who held that station for very many years before his death, which occurred two or three years ago'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Unknown
: death notice of Lady Sidmouth
Mary Russell Mitford to Lucy Olivia Anderson, 4 May 1842: 'I have had a great shock lately, in the death of poor Lady Sidmouth. I received from her two letters at once, on the Tuesday, accompanying a small portion of honey from Hymettus, which I sent, in right of Museship, to Miss [Elizabeth] Barrett; and on Friday I read her death in the newspaper.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Newspaper
Alfred Tennyson : 'Locksley Hall'
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett, 13 December 1842: 'I read Tennyson. "Locksley Hall" is very fine; but should it not have finished at '"I myself must mix with action, Lest I wither by despair"? 'It seems to me that all after that weakens the impression of the story, which has its appropriate finish with that line.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett : 'The House of Clouds'
Richard Hengist Horne to Elizabeth Barrett, 27 August 1843: 'Miss Mitford read to me -- and with what a melodious feeling she reads poetry -- your "House of Clouds." I did not know of it before. I thought it very beautiful [...] Miss Mitford thought it your [italics]best[end italics] production -- I, one of them.'
UnknownCentury: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford
Eugene Sue : The Mysteries of Paris
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 20-21 February 1844: 'We will talk of Eugene Sue. I know the "Mysteries of Paris" very well, & much admire the genius which radiates, from end to end, through that extraordinary work [...] the writer, if of less general power than Balzac, is still more copious in imagination & creation. He glories in all extremities & intensities of evil & of passion [...] he has written other romances [...] "Mathilde" interested me beyond them all, & consists of some seven or eight volumes [...] but except for the insight it gives into French society, I am not sure that you wd be pleased with it [...] I have been thinking that the American translation in which you read the "Mysteries," may probably be a [italics]purified[end italics] edition, of which I have seen some notices.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Casimir Delavigne : Louis XI
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett, 28 November 1844: 'What works of Casimir Delavigne have you read? [...] I have read "Louis the Eleventh [sic]," "Marino Faliero," "Les Enfans d'Edouard [sic]," "Don Juan d'Autriche," "La Popularite," "La Fille du Cid," "Une Famille du temps de Luther [sic]," forming the second and third series of his "Theatre." To me they seem full of talent; striking the just medium between the slowness and dullness of what they call the classical drama [...] and the unnatural and exaggerated contrasts and surprises of Victor Hugo'.
Century: Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Casimir Delavigne : Marino Faliero
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett, 28 November 1844: 'What works of Casimir Delavigne have you read? [...] I have read "Louis the Eleventh [sic]," "Marino Faliero," "Les Enfans d'Edouard [sic]," "Don Juan d'Autriche," "La Popularite," "La Fille du Cid," "Une Famille du temps de Luther [sic]," forming the second and third series of his "Theatre." To me they seem full of talent; striking the just medium between the slowness and dullness of what they call the classical drama [...] and the unnatural and exaggerated contrasts and surprises of Victor Hugo'.
Century: Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Casimir Delavigne : Les Enfants d'Edouard
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett, 28 November 1844: 'What works of Casimir Delavigne have you read? [...] I have read "Louis the Eleventh [sic]," "Marino Faliero," "Les Enfans d'Edouard [sic]," "Don Juan d'Autriche," "La Popularite," "La Fille du Cid," "Une Famille du temps de Luther [sic]," forming the second and third series of his "Theatre." To me they seem full of talent; striking the just medium between the slowness and dullness of what they call the classical drama [...] and the unnatural and exaggerated contrasts and surprises of Victor Hugo'.
Century: Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Casimir Delavigne : Don Juan d'Autriche, ou la Vocation
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett, 28 November 1844: 'What works of Casimir Delavigne have you read? [...] I have read "Louis the Eleventh [sic]," "Marino Faliero," "Les Enfans d'Edouard [sic]," "Don Juan d'Autriche," "La Popularite," "La Fille du Cid," "Une Famille du temps de Luther [sic]," forming the second and third series of his "Theatre." To me they seem full of talent; striking the just medium between the slowness and dullness of what they call the classical drama [...] and the unnatural and exaggerated contrasts and surprises of Victor Hugo'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Casimir Delavigne : La Popularite
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett, 28 November 1844: 'What works of Casimir Delavigne have you read? [...] I have read "Louis the Eleventh [sic]," "Marino Faliero," "Les Enfans d'Edouard [sic]," "Don Juan d'Autriche," "La Popularite," "La Fille du Cid," "Une Famille du temps de Luther [sic]," forming the second and third series of his "Theatre." To me they seem full of talent; striking the just medium between the slowness and dullness of what they call the classical drama [...] and the unnatural and exaggerated contrasts and surprises of Victor Hugo'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Casimir Delavigne : La Fille du Cid
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett, 28 November 1844: 'What works of Casimir Delavigne have you read? [...] I have read "Louis the Eleventh [sic]," "Marino Faliero," "Les Enfans d'Edouard [sic]," "Don Juan d'Autriche," "La Popularite," "La Fille du Cid," "Une Famille du temps de Luther [sic]," forming the second and third series of his "Theatre." To me they seem full of talent; striking the just medium between the slowness and dullness of what they call the classical drama [...] and the unnatural and exaggerated contrasts and surprises of Victor Hugo'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Casimir Delavigne : Une Famille au temps de Luther
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett, 28 November 1844: 'What works of Casimir Delavigne have you read? [...] I have read "Louis the Eleventh [sic]," "Marino Faliero," "Les Enfans d'Edouard [sic]," "Don Juan d'Autriche," "La Popularite," "La Fille du Cid," "Une Famille du temps de Luther [sic]," forming the second and third series of his "Theatre." To me they seem full of talent; striking the just medium between the slowness and dullness of what they call the classical drama [...] and the unnatural and exaggerated contrasts and surprises of Victor Hugo'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Eugene Sue : Le Salamandre (including Preface)
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett, 4 December 1844: 'The only work of Eugene Sue which I have read among those you ask about, is "Le Salamandre" [...] As strange a work it is as ever was written -- with few indications of the power to come. The only remarkable thing is the preface, in which, by way of reason for making all his people unhappy in this world, or rather for taking them out of it by being shot and shooting themselves, he says that to represent good people as successful in this world and rogues as unsuccessful would take away the chief argument for a future life.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Honore de Balzac : Une tenebreuse affaire
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett, 4 December 1844: 'The only work of Eugene Sue which I have read among those you ask about, is "Le Salamandre" [...] The only remarkable thing is the preface, in which [...] he says that to represent good people as successful in this world and rogues as unsuccessful would take away the chief argument for a future life. Now I really do hold that virtue, although not always prosperous, is yet upon the whole far happier than vice [...] I am quite sure that to represent systematically vice as fortunate, and goodness as wretched, tends to make selfish people vicious; and it is really wicked in Balzac to give one the pain he does in this way. In "Une Tenebreuse Affaire," for instance, I was so provoked with him for making Napoleon kill Michu and forgive those dolts of gentlemen, that I could have flung the book at his (Balzac's) head, if luckily that wonderful head had been within reach.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Frederika Bremer : The Neighbours: A Story of Every-Day Life
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett, 4 December 1844: 'Ah! dearest love, Frederika Bremer! I did read half "The Neighbours," and really you are the only person of a high class of mind whom I have found liking her works.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Charles Dickens : The Chimes
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett, 29 December 1844: 'I have read the "Chimes." I don't like it [...] Mr Dickens wants the earnest good-faith in narration which makes Balzac so enchanting.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Alphonse Lamartine : Histoire des Girondins
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, letter postmarked 2 October 1847: 'The most interesting [book] that I have read for many years is Lamartine's Histoire des Girondins [...] Even at the Palace where they read so little they are all devouring those eloquent Volumes -- the Queen & all. I would not have believed that Lamartine's prose could be so fine -- but the prose of poets is often finer than their verse [...] The Author does injustice to Napoleon I think, & is over candid to Robespierre & many of the other Revolutionary Heroes -- so that one wonders sometimes [italics]who[end italics] was guilty -- but still the book is charming.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Benjamin Nicolas Marie Appert : Dix Ans a la cour du roi Louis-Philippe et souvenirs du temps de l'Empire et de la Restauration
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, letter postmarked 2 October 1847: 'The most interesting [book] that I have read for many years is Lamartine's Histoire des Girondins [...] Also I am reading Appert's Dix Ans a la Cour de Louis Philippe, very pleasant esprit -- & have just finished Le Chien d'Alcibiade -- a Tale of some cleverness although too close an imitation of Gerfaut [...] I see by the papers that poor Frederic Soulie is dead -- I was just reading a novel of his on the wars of La Vendee (Saturnine Fichet [sic]) which was interesting -- only he had imitated a likeness between two persons from the old French Story of Martin Guerre, which story aforesaid [...] Dumas had been using in Les Deux Diane -- by the way I am reading 3 series by Dumas, Les Deux Diane -- Les Memoires d'un Medecin & Le Batard de Mouleon [...] Of English books I have been much pleased by Mr Jesse[']s Antiquities of London -- very pleasant gossip -- & St John[']s Wild sports of the Highlands a mixed Vol of Deerstalking & Natural History which is charming'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Leon Gozlan : La Queue du chien d'Alcibiade
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, letter postmarked 2 October 1847: 'The most interesting [book] that I have read for many years is Lamartine's Histoire des Girondins [...] Also I am reading Appert's Dix Ans a la Cour de Louis Philippe, very pleasant esprit -- & have just finished Le Chien d'Alcibiade -- a Tale of some cleverness although too close an imitation of Gerfaut [...] I see by the papers that poor Frederic Soulie is dead -- I was just reading a novel of his on the wars of La Vendee (Saturnine Fichet [sic]) which was interesting -- only he had imitated a likeness between two persons from the old French Story of Martin Guerre, which story aforesaid [...] Dumas had been using in Les Deux Diane -- by the way I am reading 3 series by Dumas, Les Deux Diane -- Les Memoires d'un Medecin & Le Batard de Mouleon [...] Of English books I have been much pleased by Mr Jesse[']s Antiquities of London -- very pleasant gossip -- & St John[']s Wild sports of the Highlands a mixed Vol of Deerstalking & Natural History which is charming'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Frederic Soulie : Les Aventures de Saturnin Fichet ou la Conspiration de la Rouarie
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, letter postmarked 2 October 1847: 'The most interesting [book] that I have read for many years is Lamartine's Histoire des Girondins [...] Also I am reading Appert's Dix Ans a la Cour de Louis Philippe, very pleasant esprit -- & have just finished Le Chien d'Alcibiade -- a Tale of some cleverness although too close an imitation of Gerfaut [...] I see by the papers that poor Frederic Soulie is dead -- I was just reading a novel of his on the wars of La Vendee (Saturnine Fichet [sic]) which was interesting -- only he had imitated a likeness between two persons from the old French Story of Martin Guerre, which story aforesaid [...] Dumas had been using in Les Deux Diane -- by the way I am reading 3 series by Dumas, Les Deux Diane -- Les Memoires d'un Medecin & Le Batard de Mouleon [...] Of English books I have been much pleased by Mr Jesse[']s Antiquities of London -- very pleasant gossip -- & St John[']s Wild sports of the Highlands a mixed Vol of Deerstalking & Natural History which is charming'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Unknown
Alexandre Dumas : Les Deux Diane
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, letter postmarked 2 October 1847: 'The most interesting [book] that I have read for many years is Lamartine's Histoire des Girondins [...] Also I am reading Appert's Dix Ans a la Cour de Louis Philippe, very pleasant esprit -- & have just finished Le Chien d'Alcibiade -- a Tale of some cleverness although too close an imitation of Gerfaut [...] I see by the papers that poor Frederic Soulie is dead -- I was just reading a novel of his on the wars of La Vendee (Saturnine Fichet [sic]) which was interesting -- only he had imitated a likeness between two persons from the old French Story of Martin Guerre, which story aforesaid [...] Dumas had been using in Les Deux Diane -- by the way I am reading 3 series by Dumas, Les Deux Diane -- Les Memoires d'un Medecin & Le Batard de Mouleon [...] Of English books I have been much pleased by Mr Jesse[']s Antiquities of London -- very pleasant gossip -- & St John[']s Wild sports of the Highlands a mixed Vol of Deerstalking & Natural History which is charming'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Unknown
Alexandre Dumas : Memoires d'un Medecin: Joseph Balsamo
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, letter postmarked 2 October 1847: 'The most interesting [book] that I have read for many years is Lamartine's Histoire des Girondins [...] Also I am reading Appert's Dix Ans a la Cour de Louis Philippe, very pleasant esprit -- & have just finished Le Chien d'Alcibiade -- a Tale of some cleverness although too close an imitation of Gerfaut [...] I see by the papers that poor Frederic Soulie is dead -- I was just reading a novel of his on the wars of La Vendee (Saturnine Fichet [sic]) which was interesting -- only he had imitated a likeness between two persons from the old French Story of Martin Guerre, which story aforesaid [...] Dumas had been using in Les Deux Diane -- by the way I am reading 3 series by Dumas, Les Deux Diane -- Les Memoires d'un Medecin & Le Batard de Mouleon [sic] [...] Of English books I have been much pleased by Mr Jesse[']s Antiquities of London -- very pleasant gossip -- & St John[']s Wild sports of the Highlands a mixed Vol of Deerstalking & Natural History which is charming'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Unknown
Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet : Le Batard de Mauleon
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, letter postmarked 2 October 1847: 'The most interesting [book] that I have read for many years is Lamartine's Histoire des Girondins [...] Also I am reading Appert's Dix Ans a la Cour de Louis Philippe, very pleasant esprit -- & have just finished Le Chien d'Alcibiade -- a Tale of some cleverness although too close an imitation of Gerfaut [...] I see by the papers that poor Frederic Soulie is dead -- I was just reading a novel of his on the wars of La Vendee (Saturnine Fichet [sic]) which was interesting -- only he had imitated a likeness between two persons from the old French Story of Martin Guerre, which story aforesaid [...] Dumas had been using in Les Deux Diane -- by the way I am reading 3 series by Dumas, Les Deux Diane -- Les Memoires d'un Medecin & Le Batard de Mouleon [sic] [...] Of English books I have been much pleased by Mr Jesse[']s Antiquities of London -- very pleasant gossip -- & St John[']s Wild sports of the Highlands a mixed Vol of Deerstalking & Natural History which is charming'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Unknown
J. Heneage Jesse : Literary and Historical Memorials of London
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, letter postmarked 2 October 1847: 'The most interesting [book] that I have read for many years is Lamartine's Histoire des Girondins [...] Also I am reading Appert's Dix Ans a la Cour de Louis Philippe, very pleasant esprit -- & have just finished Le Chien d'Alcibiade -- a Tale of some cleverness although too close an imitation of Gerfaut [...] I see by the papers that poor Frederic Soulie is dead -- I was just reading a novel of his on the wars of La Vendee (Saturnine Fichet [sic]) which was interesting -- only he had imitated a likeness between two persons from the old French Story of Martin Guerre, which story aforesaid [...] Dumas had been using in Les Deux Diane -- by the way I am reading 3 series by Dumas, Les Deux Diane -- Les Memoires d'un Medecin & Le Batard de Mouleon [sic] [...] Of English books I have been much pleased by Mr Jesse[']s Antiquities of London [sic] -- very pleasant gossip -- & St John[']s Wild sports of the Highlands a mixed Vol of Deerstalking & Natural History which is charming'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Charles Saint John : Short Sketches of the Wild Sports and Natural History of the Highlands
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, letter postmarked 2 October 1847: 'The most interesting [book] that I have read for many years is Lamartine's Histoire des Girondins [...] Also I am reading Appert's Dix Ans a la Cour de Louis Philippe, very pleasant esprit -- & have just finished Le Chien d'Alcibiade -- a Tale of some cleverness although too close an imitation of Gerfaut [...] I see by the papers that poor Frederic Soulie is dead -- I was just reading a novel of his on the wars of La Vendee (Saturnine Fichet [sic]) which was interesting -- only he had imitated a likeness between two persons from the old French Story of Martin Guerre, which story aforesaid [...] Dumas had been using in Les Deux Diane -- by the way I am reading 3 series by Dumas, Les Deux Diane -- Les Memoires d'un Medecin & Le Batard de Mouleon [sic] [...] Of English books I have been much pleased by Mr Jesse[']s Antiquities of London [sic] -- very pleasant gossip -- & St John[']s Wild sports of the Highlands a mixed Vol of Deerstalking & Natural History which is charming'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Alphonse de Lamartine : La Chute d'un ange
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett, 7 January 1845: 'It is true that posterity remembers the good; but how often does it happen that the immediate public, looking at the new bad, forgets or is ignorant of the old good! Just this occurred to me in reading Lamartine's dull piece of extravagance, "La Chute d'un Ange." Nothing but your recommendation could have induced me to read another line of his writing. Now, I have gone through "Jocelyn;" and, although I dislike the story -- the heroine in man's clothes, and the hero made a priest, Heaven knows how -- I have yet been delighted with the general feeling and beauty of the poem, particularly with one portion full of toleration, and another about dogs.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Alphonse de Lamartine : Jocelyn
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett, 7 January 1845: 'It is true that posterity remembers the good; but how often does it happen that the immediate public, looking at the new bad, forgets or is ignorant of the old good! Just this occurred to me in reading Lamartine's dull piece of extravagance, "La Chute d'un Ange." Nothing but your recommendation could have induced me to read another line of his writing. Now, I have gone through "Jocelyn;" and, although I dislike the story -- the heroine in man's clothes, and the hero made a priest, Heaven knows how -- I have yet been delighted with the general feeling and beauty of the poem, particularly with one portion full of toleration, and another about dogs.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Honore de Balzac : Modeste Mignon
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 20-21 January 1845: 'I put down "Modeste Mignon" to take up your letter. I read my French abomination at breakfast & dinner & tea time, .. so as to forget myself & be delighted to find that I have eaten a little more than usual in my trance (deeper than mesmeric) & happy state of physical unconsciousness [...] And your first words [in letter] [...] are still of Mignon, Mignon. It is a decided case of flint to flint -- & of electricity by coincidence. 'Well -- and I am delighted with the book just as you are [...] because charmed beyond the point of pleasure produced by mere artistic power in the writer. The truth is [...] that if I were to write my own autobiography, or rather, (much rather), if Balzac were to write it for me, he could not veritably have made it different from what he has written of Modeste. The ideal life of my youth was just [italics]that[end italics], .. line for line [goes on to comment further on text] [...] And that "satiete par la pensee."! -- [italics]There[end italics], lies the test of the morbidity -- for it is morbid -- it is dangerous! & worse romances than poor Modests's is likely to be (I have only read a third of the book) might come of it [comments further on own and Mitford's responses to text]'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Delphine de Girardin : L'Ecole des journalistes
'In a letter to Charles Boner (28 February 1851), Miss Mitford wrote that she had read L'Ecole des journalistes "in a Bruxelles edition with serveral feuilletons about it appended thereunto, especially a letter to the authoress by Jules Janin, one of his best'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Victor Hugo : Odes et Ballades (volume 1)
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett, 18 March 1845: 'I have the first volume of Victor Hugo's "Odes et Ballades," but they are slavishly loyal to those vile old Bourbons. What could he see in them? I suppose I shall like the second volume better.'
