Jane Collier

16 January 1715 - 28 March 1755

Standard Name: Collier, Jane

Birth Name: Jane Collier

Nickname: Jenny

Pseudonym: C. J.

Pseudonym: The Invisible Girl

JC was a remarkably innovative and experimental prose-writer of the mid-eighteenth century. She produced one anti-conduct-book, one collaborative novel (written together with Sarah Fielding ), a remarkable commonplace-book (only recently discovered), and trenchant literary-critical comments. Other work may have failed to survive: she reached the planning stage, at least, with a tragedy, comedy, farce, her own periodical, a French grammar, and especially periodical essays.

Full profile

Connections

Connections Sort descending	Author name	Excerpt
Education	Hester Lynch Piozzi	Miss Salusbury grew up not in Wales but in London and at Offley Park in Hertfordshire, the estate of her rich uncle. Her various teachers and tutors included Jane Collier 's brother Arthur ...
Education	Sarah Fielding	While at SalisburySF attended Mrs Rookes's boarding school there, and was later tutored in Latin and Greek by Arthur Collier . Her lifelong friendships with Arthur's sister Jane and with James Harris (with both...
Friends, Associates	Charlotte Lennox	She met Sarah Fielding at Richardson's house, and became friendly also with Henry Fielding , Saunders Welch (the philanthropist, who later offered her employment), and Lord Orrery . She was presumably the Mrs Lenox with...
Friends, Associates	Samuel Richardson	His close friends, too, included a remarkable number of writing women: among others Sarah Fielding , sister of his literary arch-rival, Jane Collier , Hester Mulso (later Chapone) , Susanna Highmore (later Duncombe) , and...
Friends, Associates	Sarah Fielding	SF 's important friendship with Samuel Richardson probably dates from about 1744. In 1750 he included her and Jane Collier in a list of thirty-six superior women, most of them his friends. Through Richardson she...
Intertextuality and Influence	Jane West	Marianne defends Louisa against the charge of being a bluestocking: Though her education had extended to particulars not usually attended to by females, there was nothing in her conversation to excite the apprehensions which...
Intertextuality and Influence	Frances Brooke	Number 128, 12 June 1755, follows Jane Collier 's fairly recent Art of Tormenting in discussing mental cruelty in marriage; it advises husbands to use some caution, since a wife can die of a broken...
Intertextuality and Influence	Frances Burney	FB 's dedication includes a discussion of the art of writing novels. Her final heroine, Juliet, faces even greater problems than her predecessors in negotiating the passage into the haven of marriage. At the outset...
Intertextuality and Influence	Maria Edgeworth	It opens with a breezy, antifeminist, adversarial Letter from a Gentleman to his Friend. The gentleman is hostile to female education and female authorship; his letter is based on one actually sent by Day
Intertextuality and Influence	Phebe Gibbes	She supplies a kind of cast list of characters, and says she has written A Dramatic Novel Gibbes, Phebe. The Niece; or, The History of Sukey Thornby. F. Noble. prelims largely in dialogue, without the interruptions of Said he and Said she. Gibbes, Phebe. The Niece; or, The History of Sukey Thornby. F. Noble. prelims (In claiming the novelty...
Intertextuality and Influence	Elizabeth Hamilton	EH opens with a challenge to the ignorant, since only they might suppose her subject-matter here to be unfeminine. She combines two topics: Indian or Hindu society and English, allegedly Christian society, with special emphasis...
Intertextuality and Influence	Rachel Hunter	Rachel, an heiress, gives her heart to a poor man whose family oppose the match for fear of being seen as mercenary. She is also something of a social rebel, a feminist (fond of gender-bending...
Intertextuality and Influence	Henrietta Rouviere Mosse	The heroine, Eliza Newton, is at the opening of the story being exploited as a sixteen-year-old unpaid governess by the affected Lady Wandsworth, who practises (in a submerged allusion to the satirist Jane Collier )...
Intertextuality and Influence	Charlotte Smith	Here, under the rubric of writing only scenes of modern life and possible events and eschewing the craze for the wild, the terrible, and the supernatural, Smith, Charlotte. The Young Philosopher. Editor Kraft, Elizabeth, University Press of Kentucky. 5 CS once more questions the social structure and...
Literary responses	Samuel Richardson	With Clarissa's rape and death, Richardson's circle became more critical than they had been all along, and objections from them and other readers began flowing thick and fast. The whole novel was discussed in print...

Timeline

By February 1752

James Harris (friend of Sarah Fielding and Jane Collier ) published Hermes: or, A Philosophical Inquiry concerning Language and Universal Grammar.

January 1781-December 1782

The Lady's Poetical Magazine, or Beauties of British Poetry appeared, published by James Harrison in four half-yearly numbers; it is arguable whether or not it kept the first number's promise of generous selections of work...

Texts

Collier, Jane. An Essay on the Art of Ingeniously Tormenting. A. Millar, 1753.

Collier, Jane. An Essay on the Art of Ingeniously Tormenting. Editor Bilger, Audrey, Broadview, 2003.

Collier, Jane et al. Common Place Book. 1755.

Bilger, Audrey, and Jane Collier. “Introduction and Chronology”. An Essay on the Art of Ingeniously Tormenting, Broadview, 2003, pp. 9-35.

Fielding, Sarah, and Jane Collier. The Cry. R. and J. Dodsley, 1754.