Donald Grant Mitchell
Donald Grant Mitchell was an influential American author and essayist, recognized for his depictions of gentility and pastoral life in 19th-century America. Born in rural Connecticut in the early 1800s, he came from a prominent family with strong ties to the New England community and church, with his grandfather serving as a U.S. senator and chief justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court. Mitchell received his education at Yale University, which he attended in the early 1840s. After graduating, he engaged in various roles, including farming, consular services in Europe, and writing for notable publications.
His literary career flourished as he adopted several pseudonyms, including John Timon and Ik Marvell, under which he published numerous works. His writing often celebrated the idealized rural lifestyle, best exemplified in his popular titles such as *My Farm at Edgewood* and *Wet Days at Edgewood*. Mitchell spent significant time in Europe, witnessing historical events such as the 1848 revolution in Paris. After returning to America, he settled on a farm, eventually marrying Mary Francis Pringle. He passed away in the early 1900s, leaving behind a legacy of writings that resonated with themes of rural life and community values.
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Donald Grant Mitchell
Author
- Born: April 12, 1822
- Birthplace: Norwich, Connecticut
- Died: December 15, 1908
- Place of death: Connecticut
Biography
Donald Grant Mitchell, best known for his expressions of eighteenth century middle-class America’s identification with gentility in his novels and essays, also published prodigiously as John Timon, Ik Marvell, and anonymous. Born in the early 1800’s in rural Connecticut, Mitchell was the fourth of Reverend Alfred and Lucretia (Woodridge) Mitchell’s nine children. Both of his parents’ families were staunch citizens of the New England community and the church; his paternal grandfather was Stephen Mix Mitchell, a United States senator and, later, the first chief justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court.
Mitchell’s education began at John Hall’s School in Ellington, Connecticut, and culminated in a degree from Yale University in the early 1840’s. He began to farm with his family of origin immediately after graduation and worked as a book author; a clerk to the U.S. Consul in Liverpool, England; a consul to Venice, Italy; writer for the New York Morning Courier Enquirer; and law student in the offices of John Osborne Sargent in New York. He also was editor at the Lorgnette in New York and the Yale University Yale Literary Magazine, and with Oliver Wendell Holmes at The Atlantic Almanac. His awards include the New York Agricultural Society silver medal and the New England Association of Park Superintendents silver cup.
He spent the 1840’s living throughout Europe and England, including an assignment as a news correspondent in Paris. He was in Paris during the 1848 revolution and would write about it two years later. Following his consular work, he came back to live in Paris, but finally settled in America and eventually owned his own farm. He married Mary Francis Pringle in the mid- 1800’s.
It was after his return to farm life that his novels based on the idealized pastoral life, a theme that made his works popular for more than fifty years, was employed heartily for the subject of My Farm at Edgewood, Wet Days at Edgewood: With Old Farmers, Old Gardeners, and Old Pastorals, and Rural Studies with Hints for Country Places. Mitchell passed away in the first decade of the nineteen hundreds at home on his farm in Connecticut.