Jane Welsh Carlyle

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Standard Name: Carlyle, Jane Welsh
Birth Name: Jane Baillie Welsh
Married Name: Jane Baillie Carlyle
Used Form: Jane Welsh
JWC is well known for her prodigious letters, none of which were published during her lifetime.
Christianson, Aileen. “Jane Welsh Carlyle’s Private Writing Career”. A History of Scottish Women’s Writing, edited by Douglas Gifford and Dorothy McMillan, Edinburgh University Press, 1997, pp. 232 - 45.
232
Her witty epistles, which Thomas Carlyle praised for pick[ing] up every diamond-spark, out of the common floor-dust,
Carlyle, Thomas, and Jane Welsh Carlyle. “Introduction”. The Collected Letters of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle, edited by Charles Richard Sanders, Duke University Press, 1970.
1: x
are rooted in her domestic and social activities and as a collection provide a social history of nineteenth-century London.
Clarke, Norma. Ambitious Heights. Routledge, 1990.
146
Bloom, Abigail Burnham, editor. Nineteenth-Century British Women Writers. Greenwood Press, 2000.
105
Jane also wrote a personal journal, a few poems, short stories, and dialogues which have been posthumously published. With the rise of feminist and epistolary criticism, JWC 's work has been the subject of increased critical attention from the late twentieth century onwards.
Photograph of a painting of Jane Welsh Carlyle by an unknown artist, at Carlyle's House in London. She is seen from the waist up, seated and looking down, with her head on one hand while the other holds a book. She wears a red velvet dress with lace at the collar and sleeves and a drop pearl at the neckline, as well as pearl bracelets and small gold rings. Her dark hair smooth, with a middle parting, and folded over her ears. National Trust'

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Cultural formation Julia Wedgwood
JW was born into that section of the English professional class which functioned as an intellectual and cultural elite. She was connected through her family with other Victorians strongly committed to spiritual and moral inquiry...
Cultural formation Geraldine Jewsbury
Despite the occasional friction between them, GJ felt that her friendship with Jane Carlyle was a step towards a new reality for women. Writing to Carlyle in 1849, she expressed her dream of a future...
Dedications Geraldine Jewsbury
GJ 's relationship with the actress Charlotte Cushman may have influenced her decision to make the heroine of this work an actress. She wanted to dedicate this novel to Jane Carlyle and Elizabeth Paulet ...
Family and Intimate relationships Thomas Carlyle
In April 1866, Jane Carlyle died during a coach ride in Hyde Park. TC was healing a sprained ankle in Edinburgh and could not immediately return. Geraldine Jewsbury was called on to identify the...
Family and Intimate relationships Geraldine Jewsbury
Despite the rocky beginning to their friendship, GJ and Jane Carlyle , eleven years her senior, developed a passionate and life-long intimate relationship. In a letter of 1841 GJ declared, I think of you very...
Family and Intimate relationships Geraldine Jewsbury
Jane Carlyle describes another occasion at Seaforth, this time in 1844, when GJ , upset over an earlier dispute, entered her friend's bedroom at night and acted in such a way that it was a...
Family and Intimate relationships Geraldine Jewsbury
After the publication of Zoe, a man known only in GJ 's letters as Q began corresponding with her. Other than that he was an acquaintance of the CarlyleJane Welsh Carlyle s, the man's real identity...
Family and Intimate relationships Adelaide Procter
AP 's mother, born Anne Skepper , was a clever and observant woman, a frequent and influential hostess to the London literary elite. Frances Kemble considered her notable for her pungent epigrams and brilliant sallies...
Family and Intimate relationships Geraldine Jewsbury
She dedicated Marian Withers to him in 1851.
Howe, Susanne. Geraldine Jewsbury: Her Life and Errors. George Allen and Unwin, 1935.
83
Lambert and Jewsbury shared a passage to the Continent when she and her brother left Manchester following her ill-fated relationship with Q . At first known...
Family and Intimate relationships Clementina Black
The marriage of CB 's mother, then Clara Patten , to David Black in 1849 was made against her father's wishes. The marriage effectively ended Clara's participation in intellectual and artistic circles, which had included...
Family and Intimate relationships Constance Garnett
Before her marriage, CG 's mother, Clara (Patten) Black , daughter of the successful portrait-painter George Patten , moved in artistic and intellectual circles and was a friend of Jane Welsh Carlyle and Geraldine Jewsbury
Family and Intimate relationships Geraldine Jewsbury
Her relationship with Mantell met with disapproval from Jane Carlyle , who may have been jealous.
Bloom, Abigail Burnham, editor. Nineteenth-Century British Women Writers. Greenwood Press, 2000.
223
In 1859, Mantell is said to have refused to marry Jewsbury and have her join him in New...
Family and Intimate relationships Thomas Carlyle
In 1826 he married Jane Welsh . They were introduced in 1821 by Edward Irving , who was both her tutor and his friend. Despite her mother's disapproval, they began a courtship. Their marriage produced no children.
Friends, Associates Anna Brownell Jameson
Also among ABJ 's friends at this time were Jane Carlyle , Sarah Austin , Harriet Grote , and Harriet Martineau .
Johnston, Judith. Anna Jameson: Victorian, Feminist, Woman of Letters. Scolar Press, 1997.
3
Friends, Associates Geraldine Jewsbury
GJ first met the Carlyles , just under a year after she had introduced herself by letter to Thomas .
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Howe, Susanne. Geraldine Jewsbury: Her Life and Errors. George Allen and Unwin, 1935.
43

Timeline

17 August 1847
The duchesse de Praslin was murdered by her husband in their home in Paris. He attempted to conceal his guilt, then took poison and died during his trial.
December 1855
Barbara Leigh Smith , later Bodichon, founded the Married Women's Property Committee (sometimes called the Women's Committee) to draw up a petition for a married women's property bill.
14 March 1856
A petitionfor Reform of the Married Women's Property Law, organized by the Married Women's Property Committee and signed by many prominent women, was presented to both Houses of Parliament.
1883
James Simson edited a short anthology entitled The Gipsies, as illustrated by John Bunyan , Mrs. Carlyle , and others. And, Do Snakes Swallow Their Young?.