Mary Sewell

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Standard Name: Sewell, Mary
Birth Name: Mary Wright
Married Name: Mary Sewell
MS wrote during the nineteenth century, predominantly in verse, often in ballad form, to instruct and improve children and members of the working classes. Her poems combine simplicity of language and structure with clear moral and religious instruction. Much of her work was first published in pamphlet or tract form and found wide distribution through middle-class philanthropic work with the poor.
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder, 1908–2024, 22 vols. plus supplements.
Sewell, Mary. Homely Ballads for the Working Man’s Fireside. Jarrold and Sons, 1858.
preface

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Family and Intimate relationships Sarah Stickney Ellis
One of Sarah's sisters, Dorothy, married a man named Sewell, making Sarah a relation by marriage to the writers Mary Sewell and Anna Sewell .
Family and Intimate relationships Anna Sewell
Mary (Wright) Sewell was a highly successful writer of didactic poetry and moral tales for children. Her sentimental ballad Mother's Last Words (1860), sold over one million copies. A follower of educators Richard Lovell Edgeworth
Friends, Associates Sarah Stickney Ellis
Among her few writing friends were Mary Howitt and her relations by marriage Mary and Anna Sewell . She greatly admired without personally knowing Elizabeth Fry , and felt a personal connection to Charlotte Brontë
Friends, Associates Mary Harcourt
MH and her husband subscribed in 1803 to Poems by the widowed Mrs George Sewell (Mary Sewell) . Other subscribers included Elizabeth Carter , Elizabeth Cobbold , Catherine Fanshawe , Elizabeth Montagu , Arabella Rowden
Friends, Associates Elizabeth Montagu
EM was involved in many other subscription efforts, including those for Mary Leapor in 1751, Anne Penny in 1771, and Mary Sewell (for a book which appeared in 1803, after her death).
Feminist Companion Archive.
Guest, Harriet. Small Change: Women, Learning, Patriotism, 1750-1810. University of Chicago Press, 2000.
90n31
Instructor Anna Sewell
For most of her childhood, AS was educated at home by her mother, as the Sewell family could not afford formal training for either of the children. Mary Sewell believed strongly in the Edgeworth s'...
Textual Production Elizabeth Cobbold
EC read Anna Letitia Barbauld 's Eighteen Hundred and Eleven and said it was only the more dangerous on account of its poetical excellence.
qtd. in
Feminist Companion Archive.
She was a subscriber for Mary Sewell in 1803. As well...
Textual Production Anna Sewell
AS kept a diary throughout her life, and also wrote one serious poem and several stories in verse that, according to scholar Lopa Prusty, combine humor and whimsicality with a darker sense of nature.
Khorana, Meena, and Judith Gero John, editors. Dictionary of Literary Biography 163. Gale Research, 1996.
262

Timeline

1823: John Jarrold founded a press, with his wife...

Writing climate item

1823

John Jarrold founded a press, with his wife and four sons, at 3 Cockney Lane, Norwich.
Rose, Jonathan, and Patricia J. Anderson, editors. Dictionary of Literary Biography 106. Gale Research, 1991.
106: 159-61
Cockney Lane was later renamed London Street.

Texts

Sewell, Mary. An Appeal to Englishwomen. Jarrold and Sons, 1863.
Sewell, Mary. Ballads for Children. Jarrold and Sons, 1868.
Sewell, Mary. Homely Ballads for the Working Man’s Fireside. Jarrold and Sons, 1858.
Bayly, Elisabeth Boyd, and Mary Sewell. “Memoir”. Poems and Ballads, Jarrold and Sons, 1886.
Sewell, Mary. Mother’s Last Words. Jarrold and Sons, 1860.
Sewell, Mary. Patience Hart’s First Experience in Service. Jarrold and Sons, 1862.
Sewell, Mary, and Joseph Martin Kronheim. Pictures and Ballads of London Life. Jarrold, 1870.
Sewell, Mary. Poems. R. Wetton and Sons, 1803.
Sewell, Mary, and Elisabeth Boyd Bayly. Poems and Ballads. Jarrold and Sons, 1886, 2 vols.
Sewell, Mary. The Children of Summerbrook. Jarrold and Sons, 1859.
Sewell, Mary. The Suffering Poor. Jarrold and Sons, 1883.