Jane Porter

Jane Porter is also the name of the romantic interest of Tarzan in the novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Jane Porter
Jane Porter, from The Ladies' Monthly Museum
Born	Jane Porter January 17, 1776(1776-01-17) Bailey in the city of Durham
Died	May 24, 1850 (aged 74)
Occupation	Novelist
Nationality	Scottish
Citizenship	Kingdom of Great Britain
Writing period	1803-1840
Genres	Historical Fiction
Subjects	Historical Documentary
Notable work(s)	The Scottish Chiefs

Jane Porter was a Scottish novelist.

Life and work

Jane Porter was an avid reader. Said to rise at four in the morning in order to read and write, she read the whole of Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene while still a child. Tall and beautiful as she grew up, her grave and preoccupied air earned her the nickname 'La Penseroso', possibly a reference recalling the poem 'Il Penseroso' by John Milton ,meaning 'A brooding or melancholy person or personality'.

After her father's death, her 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 it went through a dozen editions. Based on eye-witness accounts from Polish refugees of the doomed independence struggle of the 1790s, the book 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 it has remained popular with Scottish children. She wrote a number of novels, as well as two plays, which were less successful. Jane 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, was written by her brother, Dr. William Ogilvie Porter., as letters in the University of Durham Porter archives show.

Jane and Anna Maria Porter, who both lived in London and Surrey later on, were sisters of Sir Robert Ker Porter, the historical painter.

Notes

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.

External links

• Works by Jane Porter at Project Gutenberg
• Archival material relating to Jane Porter listed at the UK National Register of Archives

Jane Porter Biographies

• reformation.org
• encyclopedia.jrank.org
• knowledgerush.com
• indiana.edu
• british-fiction.cf.ac.uk