Jane Brereton

01 January 1685 - 07 August 1740

JB was a poet who began writing in Wales before her marriage in 1711 and remained productive until her death thirty years later. She discusses poetry, too, in personal letters.

BirthName: Jane Hughes
Married: Brereton
Pseudonyms: A Lady; Melissa
This name is said to derive from the Greek word for honey. It is also the name of a benevolent sorceress in Ariosto 's Orlando Furioso, who leads Bradamante to Merlin's cave. Brereton first used the name in the Gentleman's Magazine in April 1733.
; M—a

Milestones

1685

Jane Hughes (later JB ) was born at Bryn-Griffith near Mold in Flintshire on the borders of Wales. She had a brother, and was the younger daughter of two, but her sister died early.

Lonsdale, Roger, editor. Eighteenth-Century Women Poets. Oxford University Press, 1990.

Prescott, Sarah. Women, Authorship, and Literary Culture, 1690-1740. Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.

96 and n50

Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

1709

This is the earliest date attached to an item in JB 's posthumous Poems on Several Occasions, published thirty-five years later.

Brereton, Jane. Poems on Several Occasions. Edward Cave, 1744.

7 August 1740

JB died, as her daughter Charlotte recorded in an anniversary poem published in the Gentleman's Magazine. The cause was said to be gravel, or urinary problems.

Gentleman’s Magazine. Various publishers.

11 (1741): 438

Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

Biography

Birth and Family

1685

Jane Hughes (later JB ) was born at Bryn-Griffith near Mold in Flintshire on the borders of Wales. She had a brother, and was the younger daughter of two, but her sister died early.

Lonsdale, Roger, editor. Eighteenth-Century Women Poets. Oxford University Press, 1990.

Prescott, Sarah. Women, Authorship, and Literary Culture, 1690-1740. Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.

96 and n50

Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.