Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Jane Welsh Carlyle
-
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, 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.
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.
146
Bloom, Abigail Burnham, editor. Nineteenth-Century British Women Writers. Greenwood Press.
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.
This work drew her first published review in the Times, which was highly appreciative and noted that the fictions were now claimed by Mr. George Eliot—a name unknown to us.
Carroll, David, editor. George Eliot: The Critical Heritage. Barnes and Noble.
61
The Saturday Review...
Literary responses
Elizabeth Gaskell
Thomas Carlyle
(whose words EG
had used as an epigraph to Mary Barton) wrote an enthusiastic letter to her, praising her novel, which he said both he and his wife Jane
had read with...
Literary responses
Geraldine Jewsbury
While some contemporaries such as Hall disliked the book, others like Jane Carlyle
(to some extent), Erasmus Darwin
, and Mazzini
found it promising.
Howe, Susanne. Geraldine Jewsbury: Her Life and Errors. George Allen and Unwin.
80
The scandal surrounding its content did work in the author's...
Leisure and Society
Geraldine Jewsbury
Apart from these occasional quarrels, GJ
and Jane Carlyle
very much enjoyed their visits to Seaforth—visits which included smoking tobacco.
Howe, Susanne. Geraldine Jewsbury: Her Life and Errors. George Allen and Unwin.
Rose, Phyllis. Parallel Lives: Five Victorian Marriages. Alfred A. Knopf.
103, 105, 116
Friends, Associates
Catherine Crowe
CC
had already become a friend of Sydney Smith
and his family. In Edinburgh she became friendly with members of various intellectual circles, including astronomer John Pringle Nichol
, chemist Samuel Brown
, artist David Scott
Friends, Associates
Lucie Duff Gordon
Friends of LDG
's parents included political radicals and commentators of the day, such as Bentham
, theCarlyles
, James Mill
, Macaulay
, and Sydney Smith
. Her own childhood friends included her...
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.
Meyers, Terry L. “Swinburne Reshapes His Grand Passion: A Version by ’Ashford Owen’”. Victorian Poetry, Vol.
31
, No. 1, West Virginia University, pp. 111-15.
111
Friends, Associates
George Eliot
On her first return from abroad to set up house with Lewes, GE
had to undertake damage control in managing her friendships. She was anxious about the probable reaction of old friends like the Brays...
Friends, Associates
Geraldine Jewsbury
GJ
remained close friends with both Carlyles until Jane
's sudden death in 1866, at which time she was reportedly one of the two people asked to identify her friend's body at St George's Hospital...
Friends, Associates
Margaret Oliphant
MO
called on Thomas
and Jane (Welsh) Carlyle
in London.
Williams, Merryn. Margaret Oliphant: A Critical Biography. St Martin’s Press.
36-7
Friends, Associates
Sarah Austin
The couple were also good friends with Thomas
and Jane Carlyle
. SA
helped the Carlyles with their house-hunting in London,
Tarr, Rodger L. “’Let us burn our ships’: Carlyle, Sarah Austin, and House-Hunting in London”. Studies in Scottish Literature, edited by G. Ross Roy, University of South Carolina Press, pp. 91-94.
91
and introduced Thomas Carlyle to John Stuart Mill
. Other friends included...