Maria Jane Jewsbury

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MJJ , born in 1800, was a poet, novelist, reviewer, travel writer, children's writer, and essayist. Before her death at the age of thirty-three, she published a two-volume collection of fiction, essays, and poetry, as well as another volume of poetry and volume of fiction. Widely published in periodicals and annuals, she wrote a collection of letters intended for young readers, as well as many reviews and essays for the Athenæum.
Stipple engraving of Maria Jane Jewsbury by John Cochran after painting by G. Freeman,published 1847. She is seated, holding a book or paper. Her light dress has large puff sleeves and a sprig of flowers at the bosom; it leaves her shoulders bare. She has a dark shawl wrapped around her, and a long chain necklace. Her dark hair is parted in the centre and arranged in short curls.

Milestones

25 October 1800

MJJ was born at Measham in Derbyshire.
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder.
Fryckstedt, Monica Correa. “The Hidden Rill: The Life and Career of Maria Jane Jewsbury, I”. Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, Vol.
66
, No. 2, The Library, pp. 177-03.
179

Spring 1818

At the age of eighteen, MJJ published her first work, the poem Curiosity and Scandal, in the Coventry Herald.
Gillett, Eric, and Maria Jane Jewsbury. “Maria Jane Jewsbury: A Memoir”. Maria Jane Jewsbury: Occasional Papers, Oxford University Press, p. xiii - lxvii.
xv-xvi
Fryckstedt, Monica Correa. “The Hidden Rill: The Life and Career of Maria Jane Jewsbury, I”. Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, Vol.
66
, No. 2, The Library, pp. 177-03.
180

April 1830

MJJ published a volume of novellas entitled The Three Histories; many reflect the conflict between her role as writer and that prescribed for women.
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford.
Fryckstedt, Monica Correa. “The Hidden Rill: The Life and Career of Maria Jane Jewsbury, II”. Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, Vol.
67
, No. 1, The Library, pp. 450-73.
450

27 August 1831

The Athenæum published MJJ 's essay on the literary career of Jane Austen , thought to be the first substantial, formal, printed comment on her work by a woman.
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford.
Fryckstedt, Monica Correa. “The Hidden Rill: The Life and Career of Maria Jane Jewsbury, II”. Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, Vol.
67
, No. 1, The Library, pp. 450-73.
465

4 October 1833

MJJ died of cholera at Poona in India, fourteen months after her marriage.
Fryckstedt, Monica Correa. “The Hidden Rill: The Life and Career of Maria Jane Jewsbury, II”. Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, Vol.
67
, No. 1, The Library, pp. 450-73.
468
Espinasse, Francis, and Francis Espinasse. “Maria Jane Jewsbury”. Lancashire Worthies: Second Series, Simpkin, Marshall; John Heywood, pp. 323-39.
336

Biography

Birth and Family

25 October 1800

MJJ was born at Measham in Derbyshire.
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder.
Fryckstedt, Monica Correa. “The Hidden Rill: The Life and Career of Maria Jane Jewsbury, I”. Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, Vol.
66
, No. 2, The Library, pp. 177-03.
179

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