Mary Howitt's long life bridged the Romantic and Victorian eras. Born and raised in a strict Quaker family, she maintained throughout her life a strong humanitarianism and an interest in diverse religious expressions such as Evangelical Christianity, Anglicanism, Spirtualism, and Catholicism. In her writing she combined the Romantic belief that imagination can improve the world and the Victorian interest in new ideas. With a love of the beauty of nature, poetry, and words, she moved easily in the worlds of art, literature, and politics.

Mary Botham Howitt, the daughter of Samuel and Ann Wood Botham, both Staffordshire Quakers, details in My Own Story; or, The Autobiography of a Child (1845) a Quaker childhood of "stillness and isolation" that was also rich in imagination. While her parents held to strict Quakerism, her independence of mind was encouraged by other members of her household, including her older sister and constant companion...