Lady Maria Callcott. 1785–1842. Author: Little Arthur’s History of England. Reference: D. N. B.
Mary Russell Mitford. 1787–1855. Careful detail of description, akin to Dutch style of painting. Author: Tragedies; Village Stories; Juvenile Spectator. She was among the first women to adopt writing as a profession. Miss Yonge speaks of her “writing so deliciously of children,” but she “could not write for them.” Reference: D. N. B.; Recollections; Letters.
Agnes Strickland. 1796–1874. “With the exception of Jane Porter, whom she visited at Bristol, and with whom she carried on a frequent correspondence, and a casual meeting with Macaulay, whom she found congenial, she came little in contact with the authors of the day.” Author: Lives of the Queens of England; Two Rival Crusoes. [Note the hybrid type of story that sprung up around the real Robinson Crusoe.] Edited Fisher’s Juvenile Scrap Book, 1837–1839. Reference: D. N. B.
Mrs. May Sewell. 1797–1884. Left Society of Friends for the Church of England. Wrote homely ballads. Vide daughter, Anna Sewell. Author: Her ballad, Mother’s Last Words, circulated about 1,088,000 copies when it first appeared. Reference: Mod. Biog.
Mary Howitt. 1799–1888. Authorship linked with that of her husband. In 1837 began writing children’s stories and poems. Her daughter, Anna Mary, also was a writer of children’s books. Author: Translator of Fredrika Bremer’s novels; editor, Fisher’s Drawingroom Scrap Book. Reference: Reminiscences of My Later Life (Good Words, 1886); D. N. B.
Catherine Sinclair. 1800–1864. Fourth daughter of Sir John Sinclair. Her work considered the beginning of the modern spirit. A friend of Scott. Author: Holiday House; Modern Accomplishment; Modern Society; Modern Flirtations. Reference: A Brief Tribute to C. S. (Pamphlet); D. N. B.
G. P. R. James. 1801–1860. Influenced by Scott and encouraged by Irving. Thackeray parodied him in Barbazure, by G. P. R. Jeames, Esq., in Novels by Eminent Hands; also in Book of Snobs (chaps. ii and xvi). Author of a long list of novels.
Harriet Martineau. 1802–1876. Reference: D. N. B.
Mrs. Margaret Scott Gatty. 1809–1873. She was forty-two before she began to publish. Vide Ewing. Author: Aunt Judy Tales; Parables of Nature; 1866—Aunt Judy Magazine (monthly), continued after her death, with her daughter as editor; stopped in 1885. Reference: Life in ed. Parables (Everyman’s Library); Illustrated London News, Oct. 18, 1873; Athenæum, Oct. 11, 1873, p. 464; D. N. B.
Anna Sewell. 1820–1878. Author: Black Beauty (1877). Reference: D. N. B.