Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Jane Taylor
-
Standard Name: Taylor, Jane
Birth Name: Jane Taylor
Nickname: Jenny
Pseudonym: Q. Q.
JT
, a writer of poems for children when she was little more than a child herself, saw herself in adulthood as first and foremost a Christian writer, seeking to change the lives of her readers, adults as well as the young. Her poems and fictions are vividly inventive: she creates animal characters which comically mirror and illuminate human characteristics, as well as thumb-nail sketches of ordinary people whose moral and psychological quirks (not only failings) are vividly realised. Her skill in dialogue and scenes of everyday social interaction matches that in character-study. In a family where all were writers, her siblings recognised that she was the outstanding talent. In most generations since her death one or two serious critical voices have been heard in her praise, while the general or popular idea of her has been that of merely a pious writer for children.
The heading supplied for Sylvia Bowerbank
's fine entry on her in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is children's writer.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
In the recent re-evaluation of women's writing, JT
has her champions, notably critic Stuart Curran
.
A month before her sister Jane
died of cancer, ATG
expected her to survive: she had previously called Jane's illness the Lord's doing,
Gilbert, Ann Taylor. Autobiography and Other Memorials of Mrs. Gilbert. Editor Gilbert, Josiah, H. S. King, http://U of A, HSS Ruth N .
2: 42
implying that it must therefore be good.
Gilbert, Ann Taylor. Autobiography and Other Memorials of Mrs. Gilbert. Editor Gilbert, Josiah, H. S. King, http://U of A, HSS Ruth N .
2: 45
Intertextuality and Influence
Ann Taylor Gilbert
The young Ann
and Jane Taylor
, with several of their friends, formed the Umbelliferous Society (a name meaning many flowers on a stem), which met monthly to read out their own and others' writing.
Gilbert, Ann Taylor. Autobiography and Other Memorials of Mrs. Gilbert. Editor Gilbert, Josiah, H. S. King, http://U of A, HSS Ruth N .
1: 117
Publishing
Ann Taylor Gilbert
Darton and Harvey
, replying to an enquiry about printing what became Original Poems for Infant Minds, offered the Taylorfamilya suitable return in cash or in books.
Gilbert, Ann Taylor. Autobiography and Other Memorials of Mrs. Gilbert. Editor Gilbert, Josiah, H. S. King, http://U of A, HSS Ruth N .
1: 164
The response: Books...
Textual Production
Ann Taylor Gilbert
Jane
and Ann Taylor
, with Adelaide O'Keeffe
and others, as Several Young Persons, published their phenomenally successful collection, Original Poems for Infant Minds.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall.
3d ser. 6 (1805): 333
Textual Production
Ann Taylor Gilbert
Ann
and Jane Taylor
revised for publication Rural Scenes; or, A Peep into the Country, for Good Children, originally written by William Darton
.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall.
3d ser. 6 (1805): 108
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.
Textual Production
Ann Taylor Gilbert
Darton and Harvey
published City Scenes; or, A Peep into London, for Children, also written by William Darton
and revised by Ann
and Jane Taylor
.
Ann
and Jane Taylor
's Rhymes for the Nursery was published, as by the Authors of Original Poems.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall.
3d ser. 8 (1806): 440
Textual Production
Ann Taylor Gilbert
The reading-book Limed Twigs, to Catch Young Birds, published as by the Authors of Original Poems, Rhymes for the Nursery, &c., &c., was another collaboration between Ann
and Jane Taylor
.
Wild birds...
Publishing
Ann Taylor Gilbert
Ann
and Jane Taylor
's satirical Signor Topsy-Turvy's Wonderful Magic Lantern; or, The World Turned Upside Down was published with their brother Isaac
's illustrations.
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.
Textual Production
Ann Taylor Gilbert
Jane
and Ann Taylor
clubbed with friends, Josiah Conder
and others, to produce, anonymously, The Associate Minstrels.
Armitage, Doris Mary. The Taylors of Ongar. W. Heffer and Sons.
Taylor, Isaac, editor. The Family Pen. Jackson, Walford and Hodder.
209
Textual Production
Kate Greenaway
Throughout the 1880s KG
illustrated many little books by well-known authors. In 1883 she provided illustrations for Little Ann and Other Poems, a collection by the early nineteenth-century children's writers Ann (later Gilbert)
and...
Friends, Associates
Jean Ingelow
JI
had a small but distinguished circle of intimate friends. By 1863 she was a friend of Alfred Tennyson
and was also close to Dora Greenwell
. She admired and respected Robert Browning
(though she...
Occupation
Hannah Kilham
She was the only European at this settlement. In a letter she wrote of the girls entrusted to her by the governor: They are fine children, and will I trust be apt to learn....
Intertextuality and Influence
Edna Lyall
Escreet observes that The Autobiography of a Slander is EL
's only book to have an unhappy ending.
Escreet, J. M. The Life of Edna Lyall. Longmans, Green and Co.
65
In fact, though, while the central characters are left dead and miserable respectively, Lyall hints at...
