Mitford's youthful ambition had been to be the greatest English poetess, and her first publications were poems in the manner of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Walter Scott ("Miscellaneous Verses", 1810, reviewed by Scott in the "Quarterly"; "Christina, the Maid of the South Seas", a metrical tale based on the first news of discovery of the last surviving mutineer of the H. M. S. Bounty and a generation of British-Tahitian children on Pitcairn Island in 1811; and "Blanche", part of a projected series of "Narrative Poems on the Female Character", in 1813). Her play "Julian" was produced at Covent Garden, with William Charles Macready in the title role, in 1823; "Foscari" at Covent Garden, with Charles Kemble as the hero, in 1826; while "Rienzi", 1828, the best of her plays, ran for 34 performances, and Mitford's friend, Thomas Noon Talfourd, supposed that its popularity detracted from the success of his own play, "Ion". "Charles the First" was refused a licence by the Lord Chamberlain, but was played at the Surrey Theatre in 1834.