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
.
Ann Taylor (later ATG
) and her sister
Jane, still very young, left London with their parents for Lavenham in Suffolk.
Gilbert, Ann Taylor. Autobiography and Other Memorials of Mrs. Gilbert. Editor Gilbert, Josiah, H. S. King, http://U of A, HSS Ruth N .
1: 18
Author summary
Ann Taylor Gilbert
ATG
, her next sister and two brothers, wrote and published seventy-three books. The first and most famous title appeared in 1804-5. Most of these works were collaboratively authored in various combinations. They were mainly...
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
Residence
Ann Taylor Gilbert
Ann
and Jane Taylor
left their childhood home at Lavenham in Suffolk, to move with their family to Colchester in Essex, where their father
became a dissenting minister.
Gilbert, Ann Taylor. Autobiography and Other Memorials of Mrs. Gilbert. Editor Gilbert, Josiah, H. S. King, http://U of A, HSS Ruth N .
1: 86
Armitage, Doris Mary. The Taylors of Ongar. W. Heffer and Sons.
34
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.
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
Textual Features
Ann Taylor Gilbert
The poems include a pair entitled To a Sister, written by Ann
and Jane
. (Ann wrote first.)
Armitage, Doris Mary. The Taylors of Ongar. W. Heffer and Sons.
234
Residence
Ann Taylor Gilbert
The Taylor family (including Ann
and Jane
) left Colchester for Ongar in Essex (a place lastingly associated with their name).
Armitage, Doris Mary. The Taylors of Ongar. W. Heffer and Sons.
53-4
Gilbert, Ann Taylor. Autobiography and Other Memorials of Mrs. Gilbert. Editor Gilbert, Josiah, H. S. King, http://U of A, HSS Ruth N .
1: 192
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
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 .
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...
