Jane Johnson

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JJ , an eighteenth-century country clergyman's wife, published nothing, but she used her writing to examine the meaning of her life and to confront its problems.
Whyman, Susan E. The Pen and the People: English Letter Writers 1660-1800. Oxford University Press.
163
She left letters (which incorporate poetry, fiction, and a dream-vision), notebooks, more poems, religious musings, stories for her children including the earliest known original fairy-tale in English, and a set of ingenious teaching aids known as a nursery library.

Milestones

16 December 1706

Jane Russell (later JJ ) was born, probably at Warwick, where she was baptised. She was the younger of her parents' two children, with an elder half-sister from her father's first marriage.
A Piece of the Puzzle: The Journey of a Village through History. Witham-on-the-Hill Historical Society.
79
Whyman, Susan E. The Pen and the People: English Letter Writers 1660-1800. Oxford University Press.
168
Arizpe, Evelyn et al. Reading Lessons from the Eighteenth Century: Mothers, Children and Texts. Pied Piper Publishing.
22, 28, xvii

1744 or 1745

Inspired by the use of stories in family education by Richardson 's Pamela, JJ wrote, printed and bound for her daughter and eldest son A very pretty story to tell Children when they are about five or six years of age.
Whyman, Susan E. The Pen and the People: English Letter Writers 1660-1800. Oxford University Press.
167

9 February 1759

JJ died in her early fifties, after less than a week's illness, of an inflamation in her Bowels.
Arizpe, Evelyn et al. Reading Lessons from the Eighteenth Century: Mothers, Children and Texts. Pied Piper Publishing.
43
She had made her will in 1758.
A Piece of the Puzzle: The Journey of a Village through History. Witham-on-the-Hill Historical Society.
79
Arizpe, Evelyn et al. Reading Lessons from the Eighteenth Century: Mothers, Children and Texts. Pied Piper Publishing.
43
“Catalogue of the papers of Jane Johnson of Olney, Buckinghamshire (1706-59) and of her family, 17th-19th cent”. Bodleian Library. Department of Special Collections and Western Manuscripts.

Biography

Birth and Family

16 December 1706

Jane Russell (later JJ ) was born, probably at Warwick, where she was baptised. She was the younger of her parents' two children, with an elder half-sister from her father's first marriage.
A Piece of the Puzzle: The Journey of a Village through History. Witham-on-the-Hill Historical Society.
79
Whyman, Susan E. The Pen and the People: English Letter Writers 1660-1800. Oxford University Press.
168
Arizpe, Evelyn et al. Reading Lessons from the Eighteenth Century: Mothers, Children and Texts. Pied Piper Publishing.
22, 28, xvii