Mary Jones

08 March 1707 - 10 February 1778

MJ , writing in the mid and later eighteenth century, is remarkable for publishing her work, although it was written in a private context. She is still under-rated both as a poet and as a letter-writer.

Milestones

Shortly before 8 March 1707

MJ was born in Oxford, the second of five children, and the only girl.

Nicholls, C. S., editor. The Dictionary of National Biography: Missing Persons. Oxford University Press.

Kennedy, Deborah. Poetic Sisters. Early Eighteenth-Century Women Poets. Bucknell University Press.

165

1750

MJ published by subscription at OxfordMiscellanies in Prose and Verse: it seems possible that the unauthorised appearances of her work had first suggested to her the idea of a proper edition.

English Short Title Catalogue. http://estc.bl.uk/.

16 March 1761

MJ wrote to thank Ralph Griffiths of the Monthly Review for inviting her to participate in some literary venture or other, but she declined the invitation.

Forster, Antonia. Email about Mary Jones to Isobel Grundy.

10 February 1778

MJ , writer and postmistress of Oxford, died there at 16 Fish Street (now St Aldate's).

Nicholls, C. S., editor. The Dictionary of National Biography: Missing Persons. Oxford University Press.

Biography

The last was Samuel Johnson 's nickname for her. He loved nicknames, and this had reference to three things: her brother's position as Chanter, her practice of poetry, and Milton 's address to the nightingale in Il Penseroso: Thee Chauntress oft the woods among, / I woo to hear thy Even-Song.

Boswell, James. Boswell’s Life of Johnson. Editors Hill, George Birkbeck and Laurence Fitzroy Powell, Clarendon.

1: 322 and n4

Milton, John. Poems. Editor Wright, Bernard Arker, J. M. Dent; E. P. Dutton.