Mary Berry (writer)

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For other persons named Mary Berry, see Mary Berry.

Mary Berry (1763–21 November 1852) was an English author, born at Kirkbridge, Yorkshire. She and her sister Agnes (who was 14 months her junior) had a remarkable association with Horace Walpole. In his letters Walpole spoke of both in terms of the strongest affection and endearment, in one instance addressing them as his "twin wives." It was solely for their amusement that he wrote his Reminiscences of the Courts of George I and II (1789). He established the sisters at Teddington, in 1789, and two years later he induced them to make their home at Little Strawberry Hill, the sometime residence of his friend, Kitty Clive. It was said that Walpole was willing to marry either sister. His will provided for them by a bequest to each of £4000, and to both the house and property at Little Strawberry Hill. Mary Berry's literary productions include the comedy, Fashionable Friends; England and France, a Comparative View of the Social Conditions in both Countries (1844), and an edition of the Works of Horace Walpole (1798), collected and edited by her.