West, Jane (1758–1852)

British novelist and poet . Born Jane Iliffe in London, England, on April 30, 1758; died in Little Bowden, Northamptonshire, on March 25, 1852; only child of John Iliffe and Jane Iliffe; self-educated; married Thomas West (a farmer), around 1780 (died 1823); children: three sons.

Selected writings:

Miscellaneous Poetry (1786); Miscellaneous Poems and a Tragedy (1791); The Advantages of Education (1793); The Gossip's Story (1796); Elegy on Edmund Burke (1797); A Tale of the Times (1799); Letters to a Young Man (1801); The Infidel Father (1802); Letters to a Young Lady (1806); The Loyalists: An Historical Novel (1812); Alicia de Lacey: An Historical Romance (1814); Ringrove; or Old Fashioned Notions (1827).

Jane West achieved a measure of celebrity for her writing of educational tracts and didactic novels for English audiences of the 18th and 19th centuries in a career that spanned over 50 years. Wholly self-taught, she began with poetry at the age of 13 and, by her own account: "The catalogue of my compositions previous to my attaining twenty would be formidable. Thousands of lines flowed in very easy measure. I scorned correction, and never blotted." Her husband's family was proud of their connection with the minor poet Gilbert West, an attitude that presumes her husband and his family's support of her literary efforts.

West was careful not to arouse criticism as a woman writer by maintaining the supremacy of her duties to her family above all else. Her novels, poetry, and plays reflect this domesticity as well as her conservative politics and devotion to the Anglican Church, all the while conveying the high moral tone expected of "acceptable" literature of the day. West aided her career by being a persistent self-promoter. Her initial volumes were books of poetry, Miscellaneous Poetry (1786) and Miscellaneous Poems and a Tragedy (1791). Her first novels, The Advantages of Education; or The History of Maria Williams (1793) and The Gossip's Story (1796), pre-date the anti-sentimentality of Jane Austen 's Sense and Sensibility. West next published An Elegy on the Death of Edmund Burke (1797) and A Tale of the Times (1799), the latter of which was declared by critics to be anti-Jacobin and an attack on William Godwin's Political Justice. She also assailed atheism in The Infidel Father (1802). Up until 1810, West used the character Prudentia Homespun as a narrator for her novels; the spinster's ironic and humorous observations flavored West's early works.

After the "death" of Prudentia in 1810, West embarked on the writing of historical novels. The Loyalists (1812) was set during the English Civil War and provided its author with the opportunity to further delve into her conservative politics. Her penultimate novel, Alicia de Lacey (1814), justified her use of historical characters in fiction, and her final novel, Ringrove (1827), was a story in the mold of instructional evangelical works. Her moral beliefs were reflected in two books she wrote for young adults to instruct them in good conduct, Letters to a Young Man (1801) and Letters to a Young Lady (1806). The second of these she dedicated to England's Queen Caroline of Brunswick , including in the dedication an appeal for better education for young women to properly fit them for their moral and social responsibilities.

West lived for 25 years after she stopped publishing, outliving her husband and all three of her sons. She was plagued with fading eyesight as she got older, which aggravated the sense of loneliness she experienced without family or celebrity in her twilight years. She died at age 93 on March 25, 1852.

sources:

Schlueter, Paul, and June Schlueter, eds. An Encyclopedia of British Women Writers. NY: Garland, 1988.

Shattock, Joanne. The Oxford Guide to British Women Writers. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Malinda Mayer , writer and editor, Falmouth, Massachusetts