Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Jane Welsh Carlyle
-
Standard Name: Carlyle, Jane Welsh
Birth Name: Jane Baillie Welsh
Married Name: Jane Baillie Carlyle
Used Form: Jane Welsh
JWC
is well known for her prodigious letters, none of which were published during her lifetime.
Christianson, Aileen. “Jane Welsh Carlyle’s Private Writing Career”. A History of Scottish Women’s Writing, edited by Douglas Gifford and Dorothy McMillan, Edinburgh University Press, pp. 232-45.
232
Her witty epistles, which Thomas Carlyle praised for pick[ing] up every diamond-spark, out of the common floor-dust,
Carlyle, Thomas, and Jane Welsh Carlyle. “Introduction”. The Collected Letters of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle, edited by Charles Richard Sanders, Duke University Press.
1: x
are rooted in her domestic and social activities and as a collection provide a social history of nineteenth-century London.
Clarke, Norma. Ambitious Heights. Routledge.
146
Bloom, Abigail Burnham, editor. Nineteenth-Century British Women Writers. Greenwood Press.
105
Jane also wrote a personal journal, a few poems, short stories, and dialogues which have been posthumously published. With the rise of feminist and epistolary criticism, JWC
's work has been the subject of increased critical attention from the late twentieth century onwards.
Friends of LDG
's parents included political radicals and commentators of the day, such as Bentham
, theCarlyles
, James Mill
, Macaulay
, and Sydney Smith
. Her own childhood friends included her...
Friends, Associates
George Eliot
On her first return from abroad to set up house with Lewes, GE
had to undertake damage control in managing her friendships. She was anxious about the probable reaction of old friends like the Brays...
Literary responses
George Eliot
This work drew her first published review in the Times, which was highly appreciative and noted that the fictions were now claimed by Mr. George Eliot—a name unknown to us.
Carroll, David, editor. George Eliot: The Critical Heritage. Barnes and Noble.
61
The Saturday Review...
Friends, Associates
Ralph Waldo Emerson
As a result of his lecture tours, he became one of the most prominent American intellectuals in Britain, and was personally connected to numerous writers including Jane Carlyle
and Mary Howitt
.
Drabble, Margaret, editor. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Oxford University Press.
Family and Intimate relationships
Constance Garnett
Before her marriage, CG
's mother, Clara (Patten) Black
, daughter of the successful portrait-painter George Patten
, moved in artistic and intellectual circles and was a friend of Jane Welsh Carlyle
and Geraldine Jewsbury
Literary responses
Elizabeth Gaskell
Thomas Carlyle
(whose words EG
had used as an epigraph to Mary Barton) wrote an enthusiastic letter to her, praising her novel, which he said both he and his wife Jane
had read with...
Friends, Associates
Elizabeth Gaskell
EG
was glad to escape the storm of controversy that her novel had raised in Manchester, and to be feted in London. She already knew Mary Howitt and Geraldine Jewsbury
(who lived in Manchester). Although...
Friends, Associates
Elizabeth Gaskell
In May 1849 EG
attended a lavish dinner given by Charles Dickens
to celebrate the publication of David Copperfield; Jane Welsh Carlyle
, also in attendance, acidly noted that Gaskell was a natural unassuming...
Johnston, Judith. Anna Jameson: Victorian, Feminist, Woman of Letters. Scolar Press.
3
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Jane Francesca, Lady Wilde
Her essay The Poet as Teacher calls for universal education on the grounds that it is ignorance that degrades, not poverty or toil.
Jane Francesca, Lady Wilde,. Social Studies. Ward and Downey.
274
Poetry, she imagines, could become a great educational tool, especially for...
Friends, Associates
Geraldine Jewsbury
GJ
entered the social scene of the capital with several connections already made. Her London friends included members of the Kingsley and Rossetti families, feminist reformer Frances Power Cobbe
, author John Ruskin
, Samuel Carter
Family and Intimate relationships
Geraldine Jewsbury
Her relationship with Mantell met with disapproval from Jane Carlyle
, who may have been jealous.
Bloom, Abigail Burnham, editor. Nineteenth-Century British Women Writers. Greenwood Press.
223
In 1859, Mantell is said to have refused to marry Jewsbury and have her join him in New...
Textual Production
Geraldine Jewsbury
She had begun writing the novel in 1842 in collaboration with Jane Carlyle
and Elizabeth Paulet
.
There is some dispute over the novel's collaborative origins. Biographer Susanne Howe
reports that GJ
worked with both...
Literary responses
Geraldine Jewsbury
While some contemporaries such as Hall disliked the book, others like Jane Carlyle
(to some extent), Erasmus Darwin
, and Mazzini
found it promising.
Howe, Susanne. Geraldine Jewsbury: Her Life and Errors. George Allen and Unwin.
80
The scandal surrounding its content did work in the author's...
