Block:Mary Russell Mitford Mentions "baseball" Twice in 1825 Short Story
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| Data | Mention of the game of "baseball" (twice) in a short story written by Mary Russell Mitford that was variously entitled "A Village Sketch" or "Jack Hatch": "Then comes a sun-burnt gipsy (sic) of six,…her longing eyes fixed on a game of baseball at the corner of the green...;" and, a few paragraphs later: "Then the little damsel gets an admission to the charity-school,...her thoughts fixed on buttonholes and spelling books,...despising dirt, baseball, and all their joys." |
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| Sources | Manuscript of "A Village Sketch" included in a letter from Mary Russell Mitford to the publisher R. Ackermann sent from Three Mile Cross, Berkshire, and dated Jan. 9, 1826 (see notes), in the collection of the Houghton Library, Harvard University |
| Block Notes | The dating of this item is not straightforward. The story appeared in numerous publications, as well as in the second volume of Miss Mitford's series of village stories entitled Our Village. A manuscript of the story was submitted to publisher Ackermann for inclusion in the 1826 edition of his annual Forget Me Not anthologies of stories and poetry, which was published for sale in the autumn of 1825. Miss Mitford mistakenly dated the letter accompanying the ms., Jan. 26, 1826; she obviously wrote it a year earlier on Jan. 26, 1825. The story appears to have first been printed in the Forget Me Not, followed shortly by several literary journals and Our Village (see below). |
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