A Sheaf of Corn

Mary Rackham was born in Norwich, Norfolk on August 14th 1848.

After her marriage to a farmer, Fairman J. Mann, they moved to Shropham village. In her later writings this would become ‘Dulditch’.

Her husband was a churchwarden and parish guardian. Mary was involved with the Union Workhouse, and was committed to visiting the sick and the less privileged of the parish. Much of these experiences would later be used in her literary works.

Mary took up writing during the early 1880s and published her first novel, ‘The Parish of Hilby’ in 1883. It was the beginning of a long and productive career spanning 35 years during which she wrote forty works with the majority concerning the Norfolk yeoman farmers during the late 19th century as they endured agricultural and economic upheaval. Her stories are true and authentic accounts of the local poverty, deprivation and of rural English life.

With the death of her husband in 1913, she moved to Sheringham, where she died, aged 80, on May 19th 1929.

She was buried in Shropham churchyard.

She has been admired by writers of the stature of A. S. Byatt and D. H. Lawrence. Some critics her called her Norfolk’s Thomas Hardy.