Marriage and family

When she was seventeen or eighteen, she became a member of Reverend Hugh Reginald Haweis's congregation at St. James the Less, Westminster, always writing notes of his sermons with pen and paper as he spoke.^[3] On 30 November 1867, a year after her father's death, she married Haweis at St. Mary's Church, Kilburn. As newlyweds they resided at Welbeck St, at 16 St. Marylebone, London.^[6] They had four children together. Their first-born son, Reginald Joy, died in infancy in 1869, but three further children survived to adulthood: Lionel (b. 1870), Hugolin Olive (b.1873), and Stephen Hugh Wyllyams (b. 1878), who also became a painter.^[5] In the 1880 England Census, the family is recorded as living at 34 St Johns Wood Rd, St. Marylebone with a nurse, cook, and footman.^[7]

As Reverend Haweis was a popular preacher, Mary Eliza Haweis accompanied her husband on preaching tours of the continent and North America. Soon her travels abroad became an annual occurrence, enabling her to visit many great art galleries in European countries such as France, Germany, and Italy. In 1885, she and her husband traveled to America, where Reverend Haweis was a lecturer at Boston and a University preacher at Harvard.^[3] Mrs. Haweis's visit to the Chicago exhibition in 1893 resulted in her portrait being featured in the Chicago Herald.^[3]

Chaucer scholarship and illustrations

Combining a widespread interest in art, fashion, history, and literature, and to supplement the household income, she soon wrote books on subjects of interest to her. Haweis published several works on topics related to medieval and modern art design, with emphasis on viewer comprehension and use for improved artistic surroundings. She often reused material from one publication for another. For example, her essays on artistic houses that were first published in the magazine, The Queen, in 1880–81 were then reprinted in Beautiful Houses (1882).^[5] Some of her works in Chaucer for Schools (1881) were reused material from Chaucer for Children (1877).^[5]

During her spare time, she occupied herself with antiquarian studies in connection with the work of Geoffrey Chaucer, a medieval English poet and author. She believed that Chaucer's poetic lines could be enjoyed by anyone who had "moderate intelligence and an ear for musical rhythm."^[5] As one of his most enthusiastic students, she became a Chaucerian and popularized a number of Chaucer's stories from The Canterbury Tales and some of the shorter poems in anthologies designed for children and for adult non-scholarly readers. She not only provided modernized translations and Pre-Raphaelite illustrations of key scenes from the tales, but also included the type of critical apparatus otherwise only available in the contemporary scholarly editions published by Frederick James Furnivall, Walter W. Skeat, and Richard Morris. Her adaptations played a role in widening general access to Chaucer's poetry and in promoting the reading of Middle English verse in its original.^[8] She is also the first Chaucerian/art historian to link Chaucer's poetry to existing paintings and drawings.^[9]

Usually giving her name as Mrs. H. R. Haweis, she first wrote her well-known Chaucer for Children: a Golden Key (1877) which she also illustrated herself, skillfully combining both Haweis' knowledge of art and familiarity with literature. Ostensibly, it was intended to function as a historically accurate description of medieval costume and furniture, illustrated with woodcuts and color plates (i.e.detailed chromo-lithograph drawings) whose details were drawn from medieval manuscripts.^[5] This book introduced British children to Chaucer's works and legacy. Highly appreciated by the public, the first edition sold out quickly. A reader of the book wrote to a newspaper, ‘[It] Unmistakably presents the best means yet provided of introducing young pupils to the study of our first great poet.’—Scotsman."^[10] In 1881, Sir John Lubbock also included the book in his list of the "Hundred Best Books" to read.^[3] Just after Mrs. Haweis' passing, a copy of the book was sent to the Queen, who acknowledged it through her secretary in the following gracious exchange: "I am commanded to say that it gives her Majesty great pleasure to possess the beautifully-bound copy of Chaucer for Children that you have forwarded on behalf of Mrs. Haweis. In offering you her sincere sympathy in this your very sad and heavy bereavement, the Queen desires me to say that the book acquires for her, together with the inscription that coveys it, a special interest, owing to the pathetic circumstances under with it comes."^[3]

The depth of Haweis's erudition in Chaucer's Beads (1884) reflects her close reading of Chaucer's text. To reveal its hidden messages, she summoned the aid of relevant scholars and manuscripts, pondered the meanings of words and expressions, and sought their origins in other languages.^[9] As a result of her work as a Chaucerian, Haweis became a unique and highly significant figure. Also, she established herself in the male-dominated world of nineteenth-century Chaucer scholars, still perceived as an important influence in keeping Chaucer alive in the public consciousness and readily accessible in the Victorian Era.^[9]

A focal point of her interest in Chaucer's canon was the Miller's Tale, upon which she wrote much exceptional work, more than any other Victorian writer; she translated and adapted it for adult males, adult females, and children; published two different explications of the story; and discussed it at length in separate articles.^[11] Ultimately, she turned a taboo medieval story containing risqué elements into one appropriate for adolescents, managing to include morals and reminders of proper manners. She also radically changed modern views of what the proper Victorian reader's reception should be to a tale; her imagined audience for this tale is assumed by the narrator to be canny and worldly. The literary reception she received for her work in this book was positive. Her readership of the Miller's Tale, composed of male scholars, women, and children, read and laughed at it.^[11]

Women's movement and social causes

On a visit to Rome, she met several of the leading women amongst the Roman nobility who were promoting the woman movement in Italy. She admired Queen Margherita for her care and efforts on behalf of poor working girls. Mr. and Mrs. Haweis were welcomed by the Queen personally and invited to a public ball during which Mary Eliza Haweis admired the gorgeous court pageantries and Drawing Rooms.^[3] She was in awe of and in love with all the beautiful forms and colors.

In her late years, Haweis also wrote articles on husbands and wives, particularly investigating how the wife might best "survive" with a husband who guards her. Like many other women writers of the nineteenth century, she turned to journalism, adding fashion and domesticity to the subjects of science, religion, and philosophy intended for men.^[11] She wrote a lengthy piece with photographs and illustrations for the Lady's Realm in 1897 entitled "The Empress Frederick and Friedrichshof." It was a history of Victoria, Princess Royal, the elder child of Queen Victoria and a German monarch in her own right by marriage who, in Haweis's view, "has left a permanent and noble mark on German history, not only by her domestic devotion, but by all she has tried to do for the elevation of her own sex."^[13] Because of her father's portrait painting, Haweis retained early memories of the empress, reminiscing, "The Princess Royal was a very sweet-looking child. I remember a rough drawing of her done by my father, T.M. Joy, by for us children – a softened Georgian face in a quaint cap, and the stiff gown of some old German costume, in which Queen Victoria had commissioned him to sketch the child, I think in 1842: the original, of course, is still possessed by Her Majesty."^[13] Late in her life, Haweis developed a strong addiction to occult and astrological studies, which is referenced in the article concerning the Empress Frederick, and left manuscript books full of horoscopes after her death. In line with this interest, she appears to have published an article in The Humanitarian, edited by American suffragette Victoria Woodhull Martin entitled "Astrology Revived" in July 1896.^[14]

Her last known publication was the novel A Flame of Fire (1897), written in support of the female suffrage movement and to illustrate the helplessness of women in marriage. In this novel, her heroine Aglae Dorriforth, marries Henry Quekett, "a worthless tyrant" – his subsequent ill-treatment of her roughly dispels the helpless stupor Aglae experienced during their courtship and early marriage and causes her to begin using her own intellectual powers in defense.^[15]

Besides advocating for women, Haweis also sympathized with animals; she was part of the anti-vivisection campaign.^[2] She expressed her feelings and opposition verbally and in writing. Together with her husband, Mary Haweis also successfully campaigned to have museums opened on Sundays so that the working classes could benefit from the exhibits.

Health decline

As a result of her demanding life, requiring so much of energy and brain power, Haweis's health became impaired. She was taken to Epsom where she received favorable conditions; however, her health continued to decline. She continued to write as long as she could and remained interested in many causes.

Reflections on her life concurred that she strove for utter perfection and accuracy in all affairs of life, apparently due to her intense activity, brightness of intellect, artistic faculty, and unusual methods.^[3] Her annotated diaries were found along with her receipts from the last thirty years, all in order. She spent the last two months of her life at Bath, completing the last of her articles in her final days.