Jane Porter
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Jane Porter is also the name of the romantic interest of Tarzan in the novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Jane Porter (1776-1850), was born in the Bailey in Durham City. She apparently used to rise at four in the morning to read and write. She read the whole of Spenser's Faerie Queen while still a child. Reputedly tall and beautiful, as she grew up her grave and preoccupied air earned her the nickname 'La Penserosa'.
After her father's death, the family moved to Edinburgh, where Walter Scott was a regular visitor. Some time afterward the family moved to London, where the sisters became acquainted with a number of literary women: Elizabeth Inchbald, Anna Laetitia Barbauld, Hannah More, Elizabeth Hamilton, and Mrs De Crespigny.
Her novel Thaddeus of Warsaw (1803) is one of the earliest examples of the historical novel and went through a dozen editions. It was based on eye-witness accounts from Polish refugees of the doomed independence struggle of the 1790s, and was praised by the great Polish patriot Kosciusko. The Scottish Chiefs (1810) a novel about William Wallace, was also a success (the French version was banned by Napoleon) and has remained popular with Scottish children. She wrote a number of novels, as well as two plays. The latter, however, were less successful. She also contributed to various periodicals.
A romance, Sir Edward Seaward's Diary (1831), purporting to be a record of actual circumstances, and edited by Jane, is generally believed to have been written by a brother, Dr. William Ogilvie Porter.
Jane and Anna Maria Porter, who both lived in London and Surrey later on, were sisters of Sir Robert Ker Porter, the historical painter.
[edit] References
McMillan, Dorothy. "Porter, Jane." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
"Porter, Jane." British Women Writers: a critical reference guide. Janet Todd, ed. London: Routledge, 1989. 542-543.
