Jane Taylor

23 September 1783 - 13 April 1824

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 .

Full profile

Connections

Connections Sort descending	Author name	Excerpt
Education	Christina Rossetti	Christina and her siblings were educated by their mother , in reading, writing, the Bible and rudimentary French. The boys were sent to school when they were seven, while the girls continued at home. Their...
Education	Frances Power Cobbe	FPC received lessons from her nurse Martha Jones and from her mother . Her reading included Sarah Trimmer 's History of the Robins, Anna Barbauld 's Lessons for Children, and poetry by Jane Taylor
Education	Mary Gawthorpe	One of the poems MG had to learn for recitation was Meddlesome Matty by Ann Taylor (later Gilbert) . Gawthorpe, Mary. Up Hill to Holloway. Traversity Press. 47 (MG thought it was by the other sister, and later regretted that she never...
Family and Intimate relationships	Elizabeth Strutt	Jacob George Strutt and his siblings (a lively family of vegetarians) grew up in Colchester and were close friends of the Taylors, including the writers Jane Taylor and the future Ann Taylor Gilbert . He...
Family and Intimate relationships	Edward FitzGerald	After remaining single until he was approaching fifty, EFG married Lucy Barton , a woman of his own age who had been born and lived most of her life in Suffolk. Lucy had published...
Family and Intimate relationships	Ann Taylor Gilbert	The young Ann and Jane Taylor had a bad few months: their father was desperately ill with rheumatic fever, and at the height of his illness their mother suffered a nervous collapse. Gilbert, Ann Taylor. Autobiography and Other Memorials of Mrs. Gilbert. Editor Gilbert, Josiah, H. S. King, http://U of A, HSS Ruth N . 1: 65, 67
Family and Intimate relationships	Ann Taylor Gilbert	Ann's next sister, Jane , shared in their earliest writings as well as their engraving work, and became a remarkable religious poet.
Family and Intimate relationships	Ann Taylor Gilbert	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
Friends, Associates	Ann Taylor Gilbert	The Taylor family (including Ann and Jane ) met the family of John Constable the landscape painter. Gilbert, Ann Taylor. Autobiography and Other Memorials of Mrs. Gilbert. Editor Gilbert, Josiah, H. S. King, http://U of A, HSS Ruth N . 1: 126
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...
Intertextuality and Influence	Ann Martin Taylor	Although she scribbled verse (and satirical verse at that) from her teens, ATG had early in life a decisive feeling of antagonism towards authorship as such, probably attributable to her pungent dislike Taylor, Isaac, editor. The Family Pen. Jackson, Walford and Hodder. 18 of Mary Wollstonecraft
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
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...
Literary responses	Anne Grant	In 1867 Isaac Taylor the younger (brother of Ann Taylor Gilbert and Jane Taylor ) praised AG 's work in The Family Pen. Taylor, Isaac, editor. The Family Pen. Jackson, Walford and Hodder. 209
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....

Timeline

2 July 1798

The conservative Lady's Monthly Museum: or polite repository of amusement and instruction published its first number. Sometimes called The Ladies' Monthly Museum . . . it ran until the 1830s.

By Christmas 1869

Francis Galton , mathematician, scientist, and eugenicist, published Hereditary Genius: An Enquiry into its Laws and Consequences,

By 18 August 1888

Lucy Walford published Four Biographies from Blackwood's.

Texts

Darton, William et al. City Scenes. Darton and Harvey, 1806.

Taylor, Ann Martin, and Jane Taylor. Correspondence between a Mother and her Daughter at School. Taylor and Hessey, 1817.

Taylor, Jane. Display. Taylor and Hessey, and J. Conder, 1815.

Taylor, Jane. Essays in Rhyme. Taylor and Hessey, and Josiah Conder, 1816.

Gilbert, Ann Taylor, and Jane Taylor. Hymns for Infant Minds. Thomas Conder, 1810.

Gilbert, Ann Taylor, and Jane Taylor. Limed Twigs, to Catch Young Birds. Darton and Harvey, 1808.

Gilbert, Ann Taylor et al. Little Ann and Other Poems. George Routledge and Sons, 1883.

Taylor, Jane. Memoirs and Poetical Remains of the Late Jane Taylor. Editor Taylor, Isaac, B. J. Holdsworth, 1825.

Taylor, Jane et al. Original Poems for Infant Minds. Darton and Harvey, 1805.

Taylor, Jane, and Mrs E. Whitty. “Preface”. A Mother’s Journal during the Last Illness of her Daughter, S. Chisman, B. J. Holdsworth, 1820.

Taylor, Jane. Rachel. Taylor and Hessey, 1817.

Gilbert, Ann Taylor, and Jane Taylor. Rhymes for the Nursery. Darton and Harvey, 1806.

Darton, William et al. Rural Scenes. Darton and Harvey, 1805.

Gilbert, Ann Taylor et al. Signor Topsy-Turvy’s Wonderful Magic Lantern; or, The World Turned Upside Down. Tabart, 1810.

Conder, Josiah et al. The Associate Minstrels. Thomas Conder, 1810.

Taylor, Jane. The Authoress. A Tale. Taylor and Hessey, 1819.

Taylor, Jane. “The Beggar Boy”. The Minor’s Pocket Book, Darton and Harvey.

Taylor, Jane. The Contributions of Q. Q. to a Periodical Work. B. J. Holdsworth, 1824.

Gilbert, Ann Taylor et al. The Linnet’s Life. G. and W. B. Whittaker, 1822.

Gilbert, Ann Taylor, and Jane Taylor. The Poetical Works of Ann and Jane Taylor. Ward, Lock, 1877.