Jane Marcet

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Standard Name: Marcet, Jane
Birth Name: Jane Haldimand
Married Name: Jane Marcet
JM was a prolific early-nineteenth-century scientific populariser and later a children's writer. Her textbooks on specialised fields of science and on political economy (designed for school-age girls, but much used by professional men) take the form of dialogues between a female teacher and her students. They represent a marked advance in expectations for the education of women. They and her other pedagogic books for the young were for decades among the most widely used of their day in Britain and North America, and were popular also in translation on the Continent and in many later revisions and adaptations.
Photograph of a drawing of Jane Marcet, seated, wearing a dress with a broad skirt and wide sleeves. She has a scarf wrapped around her head and tied at her neck, and her hair is middle-parted and tightly curled in ringlets.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Education Winifred Peck
From their nurse and the books read aloud by their governess rather than from their parents, the Knox children's religious education tended in the direction of bigotry, as mentioned above.
Peck, Winifred. A Little Learning; or, A Victorian Childhood. Faber and Faber, 1952.
26-9
Their parents encouraged them...
Friends, Associates Mary Somerville
In London the Somervilles enjoyed participating in a rich scientific community: Mary's time there was much happier than during her first marriage. She attended many lectures at the Royal Institution , and took lessons in...
Friends, Associates Jane Loudon
As well as horticultural and artistic friends and associates, JL and her husband had literary friends, who included Robert Chambers and his wife Anne , Elizabeth Gaskell , Mary Howitt , Julia Kavanagh , Charles Dickens
Friends, Associates Lucy Aikin
Aikin knew not only the science writer Jane Marcet , but also several of her family. She wrote of her pleasure in the company of Marcet and her daughter. She mentioned a literary project of...
Friends, Associates Maria Callcott
During the early years of her first marriage, between her time in India and in Italy, Maria Graham (later MC ) met Jane Marcet and the publisher John Murray .
Gotch, Rosamund Brunel. Maria, Lady Callcott, The Creator of ’Little Arthur’. J. Murray, 1937.
153-4, 166
Then or later...
Friends, Associates Maria Callcott
Her friends at this period of her life included the diarist and letter-writer Caroline Fox (with whom her relationship was very close),
This is the Hon. Caroline Fox (1767-1845), not to be confused with the...
Friends, Associates Maria Edgeworth
By now ME was a celebrity, and could count on being introduced to the local literati when she travelled. On this visit to London she finally met Etiénne Dumont , the utilitarian, with whom she...
Friends, Associates Mary Russell Mitford
She knew most of the literary women of her day, including Felicia Hemans (who wrote to ask her for an autograph),
L’Estrange, Alfred Guy Kingham, editor. The Friendships of Mary Russell Mitford as Recorded in Letters from Her Literary Correspondents. Hurst and Blackett, 1882, 2 vols.
1: 173-4
Jane Porter , Amelia Opie (that warm-hearted person),
Mitford, Mary Russell. The Life of Mary Russell Mitford: Told by Herself in Letters To Her Friends. Editor L’Estrange, Alfred Guy Kingham, Harper and Brothers, 1870, 2 vols.
2: 213
Friends, Associates Maria Edgeworth
Among her many social engagements, she attended a house-party at the home of Whig MP and agriculturalist Sir John Sebright , whose guests included Dr Wollaston and the science-writers Jane Marcet and Mary Somerville ...
Intertextuality and Influence Harriet Martineau
HM had been surprised, on encountering Jane Marcet 's Conversations of Political Economy in autumn 1827, to discover that she herself had been teaching political economy unawares in two early stories, The Rioters and The...
Intertextuality and Influence Harriet Martineau
According to HM 's Autobiography, she drew inspiration for the setting and heroine of a later story (The Hamlets, part of Poor Laws and Paupers Illustrated) from seeing William Collins 's...
Literary responses Caroline Herschel
Late in Herschel's long life the honours showered upon her generally recognised her as a woman scientist. By 1842 young ladies at or near Augusta, Georgia, USA, had formed a Caroline Herschel Association —and...
Literary responses Harriet Martineau
The Illustrations catapulted HM into fame: she was lionized by London society. She received flattering responses from Coleridge and from her precursor as a political economist, Jane Marcet .
Chapman, Maria Weston, and Harriet Martineau. “Memorials of Harriet Martineau”. Harriet Martineau’s Autobiography, James R. Osgood, 1877, pp. 2: 131 - 596.
212, 214
Christian Isobel Johnstone in...
Reception Margaret Bryan
MB 's work met with approval and admiration from scientist Charles Hutton .
Phillips, Patricia. The Scientific Lady. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1990.
177
Her reputation as a science writer no doubt accounted for the mistaken attribution to her of the eighth edition of Jane Marcet
Reception Priscilla Wakefield
This work was praised in the Critical Review two years after publication.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 5 series.
2d ser. 30 (1800): 453-6
It is one of the books which have secured her a place (along with Jane Marcet and others)...

Timeline

No timeline events available.

Texts

Marcet, Jane. Chemistry in the Schoolroom: 1806. Editor Rossotti, Hazel, AuthorHouse, 2006.
Marcet, Jane. Conversations for Children: on Land and Water. Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1838.
Marcet, Jane. Conversations on Chemistry. Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1806, 2 vols.
Marcet, Jane. Conversations on Natural Philosophy. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1819.
Marcet, Jane. Conversations on Political Economy. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1816.
Marcet, Jane. Conversations on Political Economy. Cambridge University Press, 2010, http://www.cambridge.org/series/sSeries.asp?code=CLOR.
Marcet, Jane. Conversations on the Evidences of Christianity. Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1826.
Marcet, Jane. Conversations on Vegetable Physiology. Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1829, 2 vols.
Marcet, Jane. “Introduction”. Chemistry in the Schoolroom: 1806, edited by Hazel Rossotti, AuthorHouse, 2006, p. i - xxi.
Marcet, Jane. John Hopkins’s Notions on Political Economy. Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman, 1833.
Marcet, Jane. Mrs. Marcet’s Story-Book. Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts, 1858.
Marcet, Jane. Rich and Poor. Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1851.
Marcet, Jane. Stories for Young Children. Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman, 1831.
Marcet, Jane. The Mother’s First Book. Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1845.
Marcet, Jane. The Seasons, Stories for Very Young Children. Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman, 1833, 4 vols.