Within the span of her short life, Maria Jewsbury's work included poetry, fiction, satire, reflective essays, and literary criticism. Upon her mother's death, Jewsbury assumed responsibility for her six siblings at the age of 19, a role she filled for over 12 years, during which time she published in The Manchester Gazette, The Athenaeum, and a number of gift annuals. She anonymously published Phantasmagoria; or, Sketches of Life and Literature, (1825) a collection dedicated to William Wordsworth, which he praised. Around the same time, Jewsbury became friends with Felicia Hemans, dedicating her next volume Lays for Leisure Hours (1829) to her. The Three Histories: The History of an Enthusiast. The History of a Nonchalant. The History of a Realist (1830) was Jewsbury's last full-length publication and also contains a tribute to Hemans in the form of a portrait of a gifted woman artist. From 1830-1832, Jewsbury published a number of significant literary critical essays in the Athenaeum. Jewsbury was also friends with Letitia E. Landon, who commended Jewsbury's eloquence of prose. In 1832, Jewsbury married Rev. William K. Fletcher, a chaplain with the East India Company, and soon after, the couple left for India, where, a few weeks short of her thirty-third birthday, Jewsbury died of cholera, cutting short a promising literary career. Jewsbury's writing is known for its elegance, fluency of expression, and emotional intensity, as well as its exploration of female identity, loss, and the necessity of human connection to nature.