ABSTRACT
In Recollections of a Literary Life, published in 1852 when she was 65, Mary Russell Mitford devotes a chapter to 'Female Poets' in which she focuses on her acquaintance, both as a reader and as a personal friend, with two older women writers, themselves friends and neighbours in the village of Hampstead: Catherine Fanshawe and Joanna Baillie. Baillie delineates a community of female authors centred on the outstanding achievements of Hemans. Baillie and Mitford are well-known figures in the vignette depicted by Recollections of a Literary Life of women dramatists talking about one of the central plays in Romantic-period legitimate dramaturgy and theatre. As a playwright, Lady Dacre knew how to use social and cultural connections to promote her work both in the private and the professional circuits. For Mitford's reliance on male circles and circuits coexists with her awareness of belonging in a female tradition and its social and artistic practices.
