Mary Louisa Molesworth

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For the Irish poet, see Mary Monck. For the New Zealand composer, see Maewa Kaihau.

Mary Louisa Molesworth
Stories (1922)
Stories (1922)
Born(1839-05-29)29 May 1839
Rotterdam, South Holland, Netherlands
Died20 January 1921(1921-01-20) (aged 81)
London, England
Pen nameEnnis Graham, Mrs Molesworth
OccupationWriter
NationalityEnglish
PeriodNineteenth century
GenreChildren'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

Molesworth 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, and 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] She lived for an early part of her marriage in Tabley Grange, outside Knutsford in Cheshire, rented from George, 2nd Lord de Tabley.[4]

Molesworth is best known as a writer of books for children, 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."[5] 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.[6]

Typical of the time, her young characters often use a

lisping
style, and words may be misspelt to represent children's speech—"jography" for geography, for instance.

She also 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 Tales. 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."[7][8]

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

Anthologies as contributor

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. ^ Lancelyn Green, Roger (1961). Mrs Molesworth. London: Bodley Head. p. 25.
  5. ^ 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.
  6. ^ Roger Lancelyn Green, Mrs Molesworth (Bodley Head, London, 1961)
  7. ^ Molesworth, Mrs (11 March 1893). "Studies and stories". London : Innes – via Internet Archive.
  8. ^ Molesworth, Mrs (11 March 1882). "Summer stories for boys and girls". London : Macmillan and Co. – via Internet Archive.
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i Mary Louisa Molesworth at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database. Retrieved 12 September 2019.
    Warning. Collection contents as listed in ISFDB publication records may omit non-genre stories.
  10. ^ One item in a prose column states, "A new novel by Mrs. Molesworth ("Ennis Graham"), the author of The Cuckoo Clock, &c., will be published in a few days ..." (The Academy, 23 Feb 1878, p. 166). One listing in "Hurst & Blackett's New Works", annotated "[8 March.", uses the same byline, "By ... &c." (The Spectator, 2 Mar 1878, p292).
  11. ^ Bibliography of Mary Louisa Molesworth taken from The Online Books Page
  12. ^ "Search Results | Library Hub". discover.libraryhub.jisc.ac.uk. Retrieved 29 May 2021.
  13. ^ Project Gutenberg Ebook #28306 (HTML format). 11 March 2009. Retrieved 14 September 2019.

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

Further reading

External links
Library resources about
Mary Louisa Molesworth
By Mary Louisa Molesworth
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