LETTER: ALS to Mrs. Silsbee.
From Fredrika Bremer’s Translator
Howitt, Mary. Autograph letter signed to Mr. Silsbee; January, no year [ca. 1853].
One leaf; 4pp.; creased.
Howitt writes from The Hermitage, Highgate Rise, to Mr. Silsbee regarding her translation work of Frederika Bremer’s books. She informs of a delay: “I have not quite finished the translation of Miss Bremer’s American Homes having had lately received a fresh supply of manuscripts”; and expresses enthusiasm on what the finished product will be like, “Your good Americans may well be conscious about the book. [ ] full length daguerreotypes – so clear & beautiful were never presented of you before.” She also sends news of the whereabouts of William, and of Marcus and Rebecca Spring – friends of Margaret Fuller who had traveled with her in Europe. American Homes seems to be an early title for Homes of the New World (1853).
Howitt (1799-1888) was an English poet – she wrote “The Spider and the Fly” (1829) – who also translated Frederika Bremer’s books from Swedish into English, and she was married to the author William Howitt. Acting as co-authors, the Howitts published over 180 books together, and contributed poems to periodicals. They counted as their friends Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and William and Dorothy Wordsworth.
Margaret [Mary] Howitt, (nee Botham) translator and author, was born in Britain in 1799. Growing up in the country, Mary had a severe Quaker education, but for a nurse who taught her whist, scandal, and oaths. Mary entered school at age nine. She studied Latin, mathematics, and geography, all of which she later taught her younger siblings. In 1821 she escaped her house by marrying William Howitt, a Quaker of the less strict order. From 1822 they lived in Nottingham and began their literary collaborations the following year with a book of poetry, The Forest Minstrel. Howitt’s poem, “The Spider and the Fly” (1829), was later parodied by Lewis Carroll in Alice’s Adventures Under Ground (1886).
After Howitt’s daughter was born in 1884 she began writing for magazines in order to bring in extra income. Howitt went on to publish a series of books (The Seven Temptations, 1834; Wood Leighton; or, A Year in the Country, 1836) but it would be for her translations of the work of Fredrika Bremer that she gained the widest acclaim. Twelve Months With Fredrika Bremer in Sweden was based on a trip she took with her mentor in 1863. Other translations include The Neighbors (1842), and The Home (1850).
Howitt converted to Roman Catholicism in 1882, at age 83; she died only 6 years later, in 1888.
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