HOWITT, WILLIAM (1792-1879), English author, born at Heanor, Derbyshire. He married, in 1821, Mary Botham (1799-1888), like himself a Quaker and a poet. The Howitts col laborated throughout a long literary career, the first of their joint productions being The Forest Minstrels and other Poems (1821). In 183 I William Howitt produced The Book of the Seasons, or the Calendar of Nature. Mary Howitt devoted herself to Scandi navian literature, and between 1842 and 1863 she translated the novels of Frederika Bremer and many of the stories of Hans An dersen. With her husband she wrote in 1852 The Literature and Romance of Northern Europe. In June of that year William Howitt, with two of his sons, set sail for Australia, where he spent two years in the goldfields and collected the material for A Boy's Adventures in the Wilds of Australia (1854). He died in Rome on March 3, 1879, and his wife, Mary Howitt, also died there on Jan. 3o, 1888. Their son, Alfred William Howitt, made himself a name by his explorations in Australia.
Mary Howitt's autobiography was edited by her daughter, Margaret Howitt, in 1889. William Howitt wrote some 5o books, and his wife's publications, inclusive of translations, number over zoo.