Mary Cholmondeley was born on June 8, 1859, and died on July 15, 1925. Her best-selling book Red Pottage parodied narrow-minded country living and religious hypocrisy. In 1918, a silent film version of it was created. Mary Cholmondeley was the third of Rev. Richard Hugh Cholmondeley's (1827 1910) eight children, and his wife Emily Beaumont's (1831 1893) children were born at Hodnet near Market Drayton in Shropshire. Her niece, Stella Benson, was a writer, and her great-uncle, Reginald Heber, was a bishop who wrote hymns. The American novelist Mark Twain was hosted by his uncle, Reginald Cholmondeley of Condover Hall, during his trips to England. Mary's family narrative, Under One Roof (1918), includes excerpts from her sister Hester's poems and diaries, which she composed and maintained before her death in 1892. Following short stays at Leaton, Shropshire, and Farnborough, Warwickshire, the family moved back to Hodnet in 1874 when her father succeeded his father as rector. Despite having asthma, she spent a large portion of the first thirty years of her life supporting her father in his parish work and her ailing mother in running the home. From a young age, she would tell stories to amuse her siblings.
