Jane Collier

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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.
Handwritten notes about a projected play by Sarah Fielding, with cursive script in dark brown ink on cream-coloured paper, from commonplace book by Jane Collier.
Summary of an otherwise unknown projected play by Sarah Fielding, fromJane Collier's commonplace-book page 139, headed: "Sallys Scheme for a Farce call'd The Lady's Register or Daily Task." Hilda Londry Collection.

Milestones

Before 16 January 1715

JC was born at Steeple Langford (sometimes called Langford Magna) near Salisbury.
Keymer, Tom. “Jane Collier, Reader of Richardson, and the Fire Scene in <span data-tei-ns-tag="tei_title" data-tei-title-lvl=‘m’>Clarissa</span&gt”;. New Essays on Samuel Richardson, edited by Albert J. Rivero, Macmillan; St Martin’s Press, pp. 141-61.
145

May 1748

JC dated the first entry in the commonplace-book which her sister Margaret transcribed after her death.
Collier, Jane et al. Common Place Book.
1

By 18 March 1753

JC published, anonymously, An Essay on the Art of Ingeniously Tormenting, printed by Samuel Richardson .
Fielding, Henry, and Sarah Fielding. The Correspondence of Henry and Sarah Fielding. Editors Battestin, Martin C. and Clive T. Probyn, Clarendon Press.
xxxiii
Keymer, Tom. “Jane Collier, Reader of Richardson, and the Fire Scene in <span data-tei-ns-tag="tei_title" data-tei-title-lvl=‘m’>Clarissa</span&gt”;. New Essays on Samuel Richardson, edited by Albert J. Rivero, Macmillan; St Martin’s Press, pp. 141-61.
146

Shortly before 28 March 1755

JC died in London.
This date has remained unknown until very recently.
Bilger, Audrey, and Jane Collier. “Introduction and Chronology”. An Essay on the Art of Ingeniously Tormenting, Broadview, pp. 9-35.
35

24 May 1755

A couple of months after JC died, her sister Margaret began transcribing her commonplace-book, intending it as a gift of friendship, after her own death, to a mutual friend, Susan Carr .
Collier, Jane et al. Common Place Book.
front cover recto and verso

Biography

Birth and Family

Before 16 January 1715

JC was born at Steeple Langford (sometimes called Langford Magna) near Salisbury.
Keymer, Tom. “Jane Collier, Reader of Richardson, and the Fire Scene in <span data-tei-ns-tag="tei_title" data-tei-title-lvl=‘m’>Clarissa</span&gt”;. New Essays on Samuel Richardson, edited by Albert J. Rivero, Macmillan; St Martin’s Press, pp. 141-61.
145

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