Mary Louisa Molesworth

Mary Louisa Molesworth
Born (1839-05-29)29 May 1839
Rotterdam, South Holland, Netherlands
Died 20 January 1921(1921-01-20) (aged 81)
London, England
Pen name Ennis Graham, Mrs Molesworth
Occupation Writer
Nationality English
Period 19th century
Genre Children's Literature

Mary Louisa Molesworth, née Stewart (29 May 1839 – 20 January 1921) was an English writer of children's stories who wrote for children under the name of Mrs Molesworth.[1] Her first novels, for adult readers, Lover and Husband (1869) to Cicely (1874), appeared under the pseudonym of Ennis Graham. Her name occasionally appears in print as M. L. S. Molesworth.[2]

Life

She was born in Rotterdam, a daughter of Charles Augustus Stewart (1809–1873) who later became a rich merchant in Manchester and his wife Agnes Janet Wilson (1810–1883). Mary had three brothers and two sisters. She was educated in Great Britain and Switzerland: much of her girlhood was spent in Manchester. In 1861 she married Major R. Molesworth, nephew of Viscount Molesworth; they legally separated in 1879.[3]

Mrs Molesworth is best known as a writer of books for the young, such as Tell Me a Story (1875), Carrots (1876), The Cuckoo Clock (1877), The Tapestry Room (1879), and A Christmas Child (1880). She has been called "the Jane Austen of the nursery," while The Carved Lions (1895) "is probably her masterpiece."[4] In the judgement of Roger Lancelyn Green:

Mary Louisa Molesworth typified late Victorian writing for girls. Aimed at girls too old for fairies and princesses but too young for Austen and the Brontës, books by Molesworth had their share of amusement, but they also had a good deal of moral instruction. The girls reading Molesworth would grow up to be mothers; thus, the books emphasized Victorian notions of duty and self-sacrifice.[5]

Typical of the time, her young child characters often use a lisping style, and words may be misspelt to represent children's speech—"jography" for geography, for instance.

She took an interest in supernatural fiction. In 1888, she published a collection of supernatural tales under the title Four Ghost Stories, and in 1896 a similar collection of six tales under the title Uncanny Stories. In addition to those, her volume Studies and Stories includes a ghost story entitled "Old Gervais" and her Summer Stories for Boys and Girls includes "Not exactly a ghost story."

A new edition of The Cuckoo Clock was published in 1914.

She died in 1921 and is buried in Brompton Cemetery, London.

References in other works

Works

  • Tell Me a Story, as by Ennis Graham (1875) – collection
  • "Carrots": Just a Little Boy, as Graham (1876)
  • The Cuckoo Clock, as Graham, illustrated by Walter Crane (1877)
  • A Christmas Fairy and Other Stories (1878)
  • Hathercourt Rectory (3 volumes, 1878) – available in multiple formats at Archive.org
  • The Tapestry Room: A Child's Romance (1879)
  • A Christmas Child: A Sketch of a Boy-Life (1880)
  • Miss Bouverie: A novel (1880)
  • The adventures of Herr Baby (1881)
  • "Grandmother dear": A book for boys and girls (1882)
  • Rosy (1882)
  • The Boys and I: A child's story for children (1883)
  • Two little waifs (1883)
  • Christmas-tree land (1886)
  • "Us" : an old-fashioned story (1886)
  • Jack Frost's Little Prisoners: A Collection of Stories for Children From Four to Twelve Years of Age (1887, also contributions by Stella Austin, S. Baring-Gould, Caroline Birley, Edward Hugessen Knatchbull-Hugessen Brabourne, Mrs. Massey, Anne Thackeray Ritchie, E. M. Wilmot-Buxton, and Charlotte M. Yonge)
  • Little Miss Peggy: Only a Nursery Story (1887)
  • The Palace in the Garden (1887)
  • A Christmas Posy (1888)
  • Four Ghost Stories (1888)
  • French life in letters (1889)
  • The rectory children (1889)
  • Neighbours (1889, also by Mary Ellen Edwards)
  • The Green Casket, and Other Stories (1890)
  • Family troubles (1890)
  • Imogen : or, Only eighteen (1890s)
  • Robin Redbreast : a story for girls (1890s)
  • The Girls and I: A Veracious History (1892)
  • The Man With the Pan-Pipes; and Other Stories (circa 1892)
  • Leona (circa 1892)
  • The next-door house. (1892)
  • Four Winds Farm; and, The Children of the Castle (2 books in 1 volume, 1893)
  • Mary (1893)
  • Nurse Heatherdale's Story; and Little Miss Peggy (1893)
  • Studies and stories (1893)
  • My New Home (1894)
  • My new home (1894)
  • A Budget of Christmas Tales, by Charles Dickens and Others (circa 1895, also contributions by Charles Dickens, Margaret Elizabeth Munson Sangster, Mrs. W. H. Corning, Irving Bacheller, Julia Schayer, Hezekiah Butterworth, Cornelia Redmond, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, C. H. Mead, Herbert W. Collingwood, and Juliana Horatia Ewing)
  • The carved lions (1895)
  • Olivia, a story for girls (1895)
  • Uncanny Tales (circa 1896)
  • Philippa (1896)
  • Sheila's Mystery (1896)
  • The Oriel window (1896)
  • Hoodie (1897)
  • Meg Langholme; or, The day after to-morrow (1897)
  • The magic nuts (1898)
  • The Laurel Walk (1899)
  • This and that : a tale of two tinies (1899)
  • Miss Mouse and Her Boys (1897)
  • The wood-pigeons and Mary (1901, also by H. R. Millar)
  • Peterkin (1902)
  • Fairies—of sorts, (1908)
  • Edmeé : a tale of the French revolution (1916)
  • Stories by Mrs. Molesworth (compiled by Sidney Baldwin, 1922)
  • Five Minutes' Stories (not dated--1888?)
  • Great-Uncle Hoot-Toot (not dated--1889?)
  • The Thirteen Little Black Pigs, and Other Stories (not dated--1893?)
  • Blanche: A Story for Girls (not dated--1893?)
  • The Children of the Castle (not dated--1890?)
  • An Enchanted Garden: Fairy Stories (1892)
  • Fairies Afield (1911)
  • The Grim House (1899)
  • The House That Grew (1900)
  • Jasper (1906)
  • The Laurel Walk (1898)
  • Lettice (1884)
  • The Little Old Portrait: Later: Edmee, A Tale of the French Revolution (1884)
  • Mary (1893)
  • Not without Thorns (1873)
  • Nurse Heatherdale's Story (1891)
  • The Old Pincushion; or, Aunt Clotilda's Guests (1889)
  • Silverthorns (1887)
  • Sweet Content (1891)
  • That Girl in Black (1889)
  • The Third Miss St Quentin (1888)
  • White Turrets (1895)[6]

References

  1. ↑ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004) article 37776.
  2. ↑ William Abbatt (1966). The colloquial who's who: an attempt to identify the many authors, writers and contributors who have used pen-names, initials, etc. (1600-1924). Pub. for University Microfilms Inc., Ann Arbor by Argonaut Press. p. 28. Retrieved 10 October 2012.
  3. ↑ Browning, D. C., comp. (1958) Everyman's Dictionary of Literary Biography; English & American. London: Dent; pp. 477-78
  4. ↑ Green, Roger Lancelyn, "The Golden Age of Children's Literature," in: Sheila Egoff, G. T. Stubbs, and L. F. Ashley, eds., Only Connect: Readings on Children's Literature, New York, Oxford University Press; second edition, 1980; pp. 9-10.
  5. ↑ Roger Lancelyn Green, Mrs Molesworth (Bodley Head, London, 1961)
  6. ↑ Bibliography of Mary Louisa Molesworth taken from The Online Books Page

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Molesworth, Mary Louisa". Encyclopædia Britannica. 18 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 660.

Further reading

  • Cooper, Jane (2002) Mrs. Molesworth: a biography. Crowborough: Pratts Folly Press ISBN 0-9542854-0-9
  • Marghanita Laski, (1950) Mrs Ewing, Mrs Molesworth and Mrs Hodgson Burnett. Folcroft Library Editions (1976) ISBN 0841457174
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