Jane Taylor

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JT , a writer of poems for children when she was little more than a child herself, saw herself in adulthood as first and foremost a Christian writer, seeking to change the lives of her readers, adults as well as the young. Her poems and fictions are vividly inventive: she creates animal characters which comically mirror and illuminate human characteristics, as well as thumb-nail sketches of ordinary people whose moral and psychological quirks (not only failings) are vividly realised. Her skill in dialogue and scenes of everyday social interaction matches that in character-study. In a family where all were writers, her siblings recognised that she was the outstanding talent. In most generations since her death one or two serious critical voices have been heard in her praise, while the general or popular idea of her has been that of merely a pious writer for children.
The heading supplied for Sylvia Bowerbank 's fine entry on her in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is children's writer.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
In the recent re-evaluation of women's writing, JT has her champions, notably critic Stuart Curran .
Photograph of the painting of Jane Taylor and her older sister (later Ann Taylor Gilbert) by their father, Isaac, May 1792. The girls wear matching white dresses with puffed sleeves, lace edged necklines, and pink ribbons round the waist, tied in a bow at the back. Both have wavy blonde hair, and Jane clasps a bunch of pink flowers. Behind are trees, grass, and in the distance the rest of the family clustered around a gazebo. National Portrait Gallery.

Milestones

23 September 1783
JT was born in Red Lion Street, Holborn, London.
Armitage, Doris Mary. The Taylors of Ongar. W. Heffer and Sons, 1939.
xvi
From February 1816
JT began writing as Q. Q. for The Youth's Magazine; her contributions continued until December 1822, and were collected in 1824.
Armitage, Doris Mary. The Taylors of Ongar. W. Heffer and Sons, 1939.
137n1
By September 1816
JT 's Essays in Rhyme, on Morals and Manners, finished that spring, were published with her name.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall.
5th ser. 4 (1816): 269
Armitage, Doris Mary. The Taylors of Ongar. W. Heffer and Sons, 1939.
141
1824
JT 's writings for The Youth's Magazine were posthumously collected as The Contributions of Q. Q. to a Periodical Work.
Armitage, Doris Mary. The Taylors of Ongar. W. Heffer and Sons, 1939.
137n1
13 April 1824
JT died after a long struggle with breast cancer, at the family home in Ongar in Essex.
Gilbert, Ann Taylor. Ann Taylor Gilbert’s Album. Stewart, Christina DuffEditor , Garland, 1978.
xxv
Armitage, Doris Mary. The Taylors of Ongar. W. Heffer and Sons, 1939.
163

Biography

Birth and Family

23 September 1783
JT was born in Red Lion Street, Holborn, London.
Armitage, Doris Mary. The Taylors of Ongar. W. Heffer and Sons, 1939.
xvi

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