William Howitt

Born in Heanor, Derbyshire, in 1792, William Howitt was raised in a Quaker family and educated at Friends' schools. He became known as a remarkably versatile English author, publishing poetry, travel writing, history, and books on country life over a long career.

He is especially remembered for works that observed ordinary people and places with sympathy and detail, including writing on rural England. His literary life was closely linked with that of his wife, Mary Howitt, a well-known writer in her own right, and the two collaborated on several books.

Howitt died in 1879. Today he is often valued as one of those nineteenth-century writers who captured the textures of everyday life as well as the wider cultural interests of his age.