Mary Howitt (12 March 1799 – 30 January 1888) was an English poet, the author of the famous poem ''
The Spider and the Fly''. She translated several tales by
Hans Christian Andersen
Hans Christian Andersen ( , ; 2 April 1805 – 4 August 1875) was a Danish author. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogue (literature), travelogues, novels, and poems, he is best remembered for his literary fairy tales.
Andersen's fai ...
. Some of her works were written in conjunction with her husband,
William Howitt. Many, in verse and prose, were intended for young people.
Background and early life
Mary Botham, daughter of Samuel Botham and Ann, was born at
Coleford, Gloucestershire
Coleford is a market town in the west of the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, England, east of the Welsh border and close to the Wye Valley. It is the administrative centre of the Forest of Dean district. The combined population of the town's ...
, where her parents lived temporarily, while her father, a prosperous
Quaker
Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers ...
surveyor and former farmer of
Uttoxeter
Uttoxeter ( , ) is a market town and civil parish in the East Staffordshire borough of Staffordshire, England. It is near to the Derbyshire county border.
The town is from Burton upon Trent via the A50 and the A38, from Stafford via the A51 ...
, Staffordshire, looked after some mining property. In 1796, aged 38, Samuel had married 32-year-old Ann, daughter of a Shrewsbury ribbon-weaver. They had four children: Anna, Mary, Emma and Charles. Their
Queen Anne house is now called Howitt Place.
[ Mary Botham was taught at home, read widely and began writing verse at a very early age.
]
Marriage and writing
On 16 April 1821 she married William Howitt and began a career of joint authorship with him. Her life was bound up with that of her husband; she was separated from him only during a period when he journeyed to Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...
(1851–1854).[ She and her husband wrote over 180 books.
The Howitts lived initially in ]Heanor
Heanor (/ˈhiːnə/) is a town in the Amber Valley district of Derbyshire, England. It lies north-east of Derby and forms, with the adjacent village of Loscoe, the civil parishes in England, civil parish and town council-administered area of He ...
in Derbyshire, where William was a pharmacist.[Mary Howitt site]
Accessed 3 October 2007. Not until 1823, when they were living in Nottingham
Nottingham ( , East Midlands English, locally ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located south-east of Sheffield and nor ...
, did William decide to give up his business with his brother Richard
Richard is a male given name. It originates, via Old French, from compound of the words descending from Proto-Germanic language">Proto-Germanic ''*rīk-'' 'ruler, leader, king' and ''*hardu-'' 'strong, brave, hardy', and it therefore means 'st ...
and concentrate with Mary on writing.[ Their literary productions at first consisted mainly of poetry and other contributions to annuals and periodicals. A selection appeared in 1827 as ''The Desolation of ]Eyam
Eyam () is an English village and civil parish in the Derbyshire Dales that lies within the Peak District National Park. There is evidence of early occupation by Ancient Britons on the surrounding moors and lead was mined in the area by the Ro ...
and other Poems''.
The couple mixed with many literary figures, including Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English novelist, journalist, short story writer and Social criticism, social critic. He created some of literature's best-known fictional characters, and is regarded by ...
, Elizabeth Gaskell
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (''née'' Stevenson; 29 September 1810 – 12 November 1865), often referred to as Mrs Gaskell, was an English novelist, biographer, and short story writer. Her novels offer detailed studies of Victorian era, Victoria ...
and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. On moving to Esher
Esher ( ) is a town in the borough of Borough of Elmbridge, Elmbridge in Surrey, England, to the east of the River Mole, Surrey, River Mole.
Esher is an outlying suburb of London, close to the London–Surrey border; with Esher Commons at its ...
in 1837, Howitt began writing a long series of well-known tales for children, with signal success.[ In 1837 they toured Northern England and stayed with ]William
William is a masculine given name of Germanic languages, Germanic origin. It became popular in England after the Norman Conquest, Norman conquest in 1066,All Things William"Meaning & Origin of the Name"/ref> and remained so throughout the Middle ...
and Dorothy Wordsworth.[ Their work was generally well regarded: in 1839 ]Queen Victoria
Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in January 1901. Her reign of 63 year ...
gave George Byng a copy of Mary's ''Hymns and Fireside Verses''.[
William and Mary moved to London in 1843, and after a second move in 1844, counted ]Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (; 6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's ...
amongst their neighbours.[ While William was in Australia, Mary was responsible for getting his collection ''Stories from English and Foreign Life,'' a translation Ennemoser's ''History of Magic,'' and the ''Australian Boy's Book,'' through the press. During this time she also compiled a history of the United States and edited and wrote various juvenile works.][Portraits of Men of Eminence in Literature, Science, and Art, with Biographical Memoirs, by Ernest Edwards, B.A. ; Ed. by Lovell Reeve, Lovell Reeve & Co., 1863] Her ''Popular History of the United States'', published in the United Kingdom in 1859 and the United States in 1860, was "quickly forgotten" in its time but has been praised in the 21st century as a "well-crafted work" that "surpassed all previous histories in its fluid literary style." Uniquely, she paid full attention to slavery, including its role in the north, and made "unprecedented criticisms" of slave codes
The slave codes were laws relating to slavery and enslaved people, specifically regarding the Atlantic slave trade and chattel slavery in the Americas.
Most slave codes were concerned with the rights and duties of free people in regards to ensla ...
in New York and South Carolina, compared the " so-called 1741 New York slave revolt" to the Salem witch trials
The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in Province of Massachusetts Bay, colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. More than 200 people were accused. Not everyone wh ...
, condemned the American Colonization Society
The American Colonization Society (ACS), initially the Society for the Colonization of Free People of Color of America, was an American organization founded in 1816 by Robert Finley to encourage and support the repatriation of freeborn peop ...
, and pointed out the hypocrisy underlying the American Revolution
The American Revolution (1765–1783) was a colonial rebellion and war of independence in which the Thirteen Colonies broke from British America, British rule to form the United States of America. The revolution culminated in the American ...
, in which colonists contended for "their own liberty" while "depriving other people of theirs."
In 1853 they moved to West Hill in Highgate
Highgate is a suburban area of N postcode area, north London in the London Borough of Camden, London Boroughs of Camden, London Borough of Islington, Islington and London Borough of Haringey, Haringey. The area is at the north-eastern corner ...
close to ''Hillside'', the home of their friends, the physician and sanitary reformer Thomas Southwood Smith and his partner, the artist Margaret
Margaret is a feminine given name, which means "pearl". It is of Latin origin, via Ancient Greek and ultimately from Iranian languages, Old Iranian. It has been an English language, English name since the 11th century, and remained popular thro ...
and her sister Mary Gillies. Mary Howitt had some years earlier arranged that the children's writer Hans Christian Andersen
Hans Christian Andersen ( , ; 2 April 1805 – 4 August 1875) was a Danish author. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogue (literature), travelogues, novels, and poems, he is best remembered for his literary fairy tales.
Andersen's fai ...
would visit ''Hillside'' to see the haymaking during his trip to England in 1847. After 1856 Mary, besides anonymous contributions to periodical literature of the day, edited with the assistance of her daughter ''A Treasury of Stories for the Young,'' in three volumes.
Scandinavia
In the early 1840s Mary Howitt was residing in Heidelberg
Heidelberg (; ; ) is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fifth-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, and with a population of about 163,000, of which roughly a quarter consists of studen ...
, where her literary friends included Shelley's biographer Thomas Medwin and the poet Caroline de Crespigny, and her attention was drawn to Scandinavian literature. She and a friend, Madame Schoultz, set about learning Swedish and Danish. She then translated into English and introduced Fredrika Bremer's novels (1842–1863, 18 vols). Howitt also translated many of Hans Christian Andersen's tales, such as[
*''Only a Fiddler'' (1845)
*''The Improvisators'' (1845, 1847)
*''Wonderful Stories for Children'' (1846)
*''The True Story of every Life'' (1847).][
Among her original works were ''The Heir of Wast-WayIand'' (1847). She edited for three years the ''Fisher’s Drawing Room Scrap Book'', writing, among other articles, "Biographical Sketches of the Queens of England". She edited the ''Pictorial Calendar of the Seasons'', added an original appendix to her husband's translation of Joseph Ennemoser's ''History of Magic'', and took the chief share in ''The Literature and Romance of Northern Europe'' (1852). She also produced a ''Popular History of the United States'' (2 vols, 1859), and a ]three-volume novel
The three-volume novel (sometimes three-decker or triple decker) was a standard form of publishing for British fiction during the nineteenth century. It was a significant stage in the development of the modern novel as a form of popular literatur ...
called ''The Cost of Caergwyn'' (1864).[
Mary's brother-in-law Godfrey Howitt, his wife and her family emigrated to Australia, arriving at ]Port Phillip
Port Phillip (Kulin languages, Kulin: ''Narm-Narm'') or Port Phillip Bay is a horsehead-shaped bay#Types, enclosed bay on the central coast of southern Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia. The bay opens into the Bass Strait via a short, ...
in April 1840. In June 1852, the three male Howitts, accompanied by Edward La Trobe Bateman, sailed there, hoping to make a fortune. Meanwhile, Mary and her two daughters moved into The Hermitage, Bateman's cottage in Highgate
Highgate is a suburban area of N postcode area, north London in the London Borough of Camden, London Boroughs of Camden, London Borough of Islington, Islington and London Borough of Haringey, Haringey. The area is at the north-eastern corner ...
, which had previously been occupied by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti (12 May 1828 – 9 April 1882), generally known as Dante Gabriel Rossetti ( ; ), was an English poet, illustrator, painter, translator, and member of the Rossetti family. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brother ...
.
The men returned from Australia a number of years later. William wrote several books describing its flora and fauna.[ Their son, Alfred William Howitt, achieved renown as an Australian explorer, ]anthropologist
An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...
and naturalist
Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...
; he discovered the remains of the explorers Burke and Wills
The Burke and Wills expedition (originally called the Victorian Exploring Expedition) was an exploration expedition organised by the Royal Society of Victoria (RSV) in Australia in 1860–61.
The exploration party initially consisted of nine ...
, which he brought to Melbourne
Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...
for burial.
Mary Howitt had several other children. Charlton Howitt was drowned while engineering a road in New Zealand. Anna Mary Howitt spent two years in Munich with the artist Wilhelm von Kaulbach
Wilhelm von Kaulbach (15 October 18057 April 1874) was a Germans, German painter, noted mainly as a muralist, but also as a book illustrator. His murals decorate buildings in Munich. He is associated with the Düsseldorf school of painting.
Bio ...
, an experience she wrote up as ''An Art-Student in Munich''. She married Alaric Alfred Watts, wrote a biography of her father, and died while on a visit to her mother in Tirol in 1884. Margaret Howitt wrote the ''Life of Fredrika Bremer'' and a memoir of her own mother.
Mary Howitt's name was attached as author, translator or editor to at least 110 works. She received a silver medal from the Literary Academy of Stockholm, and on 21 April 1879 gained a civil list pension of £100 a year. In her declining years she joined the Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
, and was one of an English deputation received by Pope Leo XIII
Pope Leo XIII (; born Gioacchino Vincenzo Raffaele Luigi Pecci; 2March 181020July 1903) was head of the Catholic Church from 20 February 1878 until his death in July 1903. He had the fourth-longest reign of any pope, behind those of Peter the Ap ...
on 10 January 1888. Her ''Reminiscences of my Later Life'' were printed in ''Good Words
''Good Words'' was a 19th-century monthly periodical established in Scotland
Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consist ...
'' in 1886. ''The Times
''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...
'' wrote of her and her husband:
Their friends used jokingly to call them William
William is a masculine given name of Germanic languages, Germanic origin. It became popular in England after the Norman Conquest, Norman conquest in 1066,All Things William"Meaning & Origin of the Name"/ref> and remained so throughout the Middle ...
and Mary, and to maintain that they had been crowned together like their royal prototypes. Nothing that either of them wrote will live, but they were so industrious, so disinterested, so amiable, so devoted to the work of spreading good and innocent literature, that their names ought not to disappear unmourned.
Mary Howitt was away from her residence in Meran
Merano (, ; ) or Meran () is a (municipality) in South Tyrol, Northern Italy. Generally best known for its spa resorts, it is located within a basin, surrounded by mountains standing up to above sea level, at the entrance to the Passeier Va ...
in Tirol, spending the winter in Rome, when she died of bronchitis
Bronchitis is inflammation of the bronchi (large and medium-sized airways) in the lungs that causes coughing. Bronchitis usually begins as an infection in the nose, ears, throat, or sinuses. The infection then makes its way down to the bronchi. ...
on 30 January 1888.[
]
Her works
Among those written independently of her husband were:
*''Sketches of Natural History'' (1834)
*''Wood Leighton, or a Year in the Country'' (1836)
*''Birds and Flowers and other Country Things'' (1838)
*''Hymns and Fireside Verses'' (1839)
*''Hope on, Hope ever, a Tale'' (1840)
*''Strive and Thrive'' (1840)
*''Sowing and Reaping, or What will come of it'' (1841)
*''Work and Wages, or Life in Service'' (1842)
*''Which is the Wiser? or People Abroad'' (1842)
*''Little Coin, Much Care'' (1842)
*''No Sense like Common Sense'' (1843)
*''Love and Money'' (1843)
*''My Uncle the Clockmaker'' (1844)
*''The Two Apprentices'' (1844)
*''My own Story, or the Autobiography of a Child'' (1845)
*''Fireside Verses'' (1845)
*''Ballads and other Poems'' (1847)
*''The Children's Year'' (1847)
*''The Childhood of Mary Leeson'' (1848)
*'' Our Cousins in Ohio'' (1849)
*''The Heir of Wast-Wayland'' (1851)
*''The Dial of Love'' (1853)
*''Birds and Flowers and other Country Things'' (1855)
*''The Picture Book for the Young'' (1855)
*''M. Howitt's Illustrated Library for the Young'' (1856; two series)
*''Lillieslea, or Lost and Found'' (1861)
*''Little Arthur's Letters to his Sister Mary'' (1861)
*''The Poet's Children'' (1863)
*''The Story of Little Cristal'' (1863)
*''Mr. Rudd's Grandchildren'' (1864)
*''Tales in Prose for Young People'' (1864)
*''M. Howitt's Sketches of Natural History'' (1864)
*''Tales in Verse for Young People'' (1865)
*''Our Four-footed Friends'' (1867)
*''John Oriel's Start in Life'' (1868)
*''Pictures from Nature'' (1869)
*''Vignettes of American History'' (1869)
*''A Pleasant Life'' (1871)
*''Birds and their Nests'' (1872)
*''Natural History Stories'' (1875)
*''Tales for all Seasons'' (1881)
*''Tales of English Life, including Middleton and the Middletons'' (1881)[
]
The Spider and the Fly
The poem was originally published in 1829. When Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet, mathematician, photographer and reluctant Anglicanism, Anglican deacon. His most notable works are ''Alice ...
was readying ''Alice's Adventures Under Ground ''Alice's Adventures Under Ground'' may refer to:
*''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (also known as ''Alice in Wonderland'') is an 1865 English Children's literature, children's novel by Lewis Carroll, a ...
'' for publication, he replaced a parody he had made of a negro minstrel song with the " Lobster Quadrille", a parody of Mary's poem.
The poem became a Caldecott Honor Book in October 2003.Children's Book awards announced. New York Times 6 October 2007
accessed 8 October 2007
References
Further reading
*''Mary Howitt: an Autobiography'', edited by her daughter, Margaret Howitt (1889)
*C. R. Woodring, ''Victorian Samplers – William & Mary Howitt'' (1952)
*A. Lee, ''Laurels and Rosemary – The Life of William & Mary Howitt'' (1955)
External links
*
*
*
Complete list of her works
*
Papers of Mary and William Howitt are held at Manuscripts and Special Collections, The University of Nottingham
*
*Th
William and Mary Howitt Papers
held a
Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College
{{DEFAULTSORT:Howitt, Mary
1799 births
1888 deaths
English women poets
19th-century English poets
British children's poets
19th-century English women writers
19th-century English translators
Swedish–English translators
Danish–English translators
German–English translators
English Quakers
Deaths from bronchitis
People from Coleford, Gloucestershire