author
Edward Ledwich Mitford
A Victorian traveler and civil servant whose writing grew out of years spent in Morocco, the Middle East, and Ceylon. Best known for his vivid travel memoirs, he turned long, difficult journeys into stories full of movement, observation, and adventure.
1 Audiobook
The Arab's Pledge: A Tale of Marocco in 1830
by Edward Ledwich Mitford
About the author
Born in London in 1811, Edward Ledwich Osbaldeston Mitford came from the old Mitford family of Northumberland. Reliable author references describe him as the son of Robert Mitford, and note that while still young he went to Morocco, where he served as a consular agent and later drew on those experiences in his fiction.
Mitford is best remembered for A Land March from England to Ceylon Forty Years Ago, the account of an ambitious overland journey to Ceylon, where he later served for many years in the civil service. The same sources also connect him with The Arab's Pledge: A Tale of Marocco in 1830 and Poems, Dramatic and Lyrical, showing a writer whose work mixed travel, memory, and invention.
After his years abroad, he returned to England and lived at Mitford Castle in Northumberland. Sources consulted agree that he lived an exceptionally long life, dying in 1912 at the age of 100.