Mary Stockdale

Mary Ridgway Stockdale (1769–1821) was an English writer on the themes of Christian spirituality. She was the daughter of John Stockdale and sister of John Joseph Stockdale.

Mary was born in London and was a sickly child, educated at the home of her father, a publisher. As she grew older, her health recovered and she pursued her own education, reading widely and enthusiastically. She soon devoted herself to nursing her mother and family and a young maid servant Elizabeth Haws. When Elizabeth died, Mary wrote her first poem, The Effusions of the Heart which her father offered to publish. However, Mary modestly refused and only allowed publication when she herself again fell ill and believed herself near to death. In The Mirror of the Mind, she wrote of "the emptiness of sublunary things" and that she held "the most perfect indifference for everything around me."^[1]

She wrote:

• The Effusions of the Heart: Poems (1798);
• The Mirror of the Mind: Poems (with an autobiography) (1810), 2 vols;
• The Life of a Boy (1821), 2 vols.;

— besides translations from Arnaud Berquin and others, and some minor pieces.^[2]

References

Bibliography

• Barros, C. A. & Smith, J. M. (2000). Life-writings by British Women, 1660-1815: An Anthology. UPNE. pp. pp394–402. ISBN 1555534325.  (Google Books)
• Sutton, C. W. (1897) "Stockdale, John", in Lee, S. (ed.) Dictionary of National Biography