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{{short description|Scottish writer (1801-1866)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2021}}
{{Use British English|date=July 2012}}
{{infobox person
[[File:Jane Baillie Carlyle (née Welsh) by Samuel Laurence detail.jpg|right|thumb|Portrait]]▼
| honorific_prefix =
| name = {{nowrap|Jane Baillie Carlyle}}
| honorific_suffix =
▲
| caption =
| birth_date = {{birth date|df=y|1801|7|14}}
| birth_place = {{nowrap|[[Haddington, East Lothian]], Scotland}}
| death_date = {{death date and age|df=y|1866|4|21|1801|7|14}}
| death_place = {{nowrap|[[London]], England}}
| resting_place = [[St Mary's Collegiate Church, Haddington]], Scotland
| education =
| alma_mater =
| father = {{nowrap|John Welsh}}
| mother = Grace Caplegill
| spouse = {{marriage|[[Thomas Carlyle]]|1826|1866}}
| occupation = {{nowrap|Writer}}
| relatives =
}}
'''Jane Baillie Carlyle''' (''{{nee}}'' '''Welsh'''; 14 July 1801 – 21 April 1866) was a Scottish writer and the wife of [[Thomas Carlyle]].▼
She did not publish any work in her lifetime, but she was widely seen as an extraordinary letter writer. [[Virginia Woolf]] called her one of the "great letter writers
▲'''Jane Baillie Carlyle''' ({{nee}} Welsh; 14 July 1801 – 21 April 1866) was a Scottish writer and the wife of [[Thomas Carlyle]].
▲She did not publish any work in her lifetime, but she was widely seen as an extraordinary letter writer. [[Virginia Woolf]] called her one of the "great letter writers,"<ref>{{cite book |last1=Woolf |first1=Virginia |title=The Essays of Virginia Woolf |date=1986 |publisher=Harcourt Brace Jovanavich |location=New York |page=184}}</ref> and [[Elizabeth Hardwick (writer)|Elizabeth Hardwick]] described her work as a "private writing career."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hardwick |first1=Elizabeth |title=Seduction & Betrayal |date=1974 |publisher=Random House |location=New York |page=174}}</ref>
==Life==
Jane Baillie Welsh
===Marriage to Thomas Carlyle===
[[File:Craigenputtock by George Moir.png|thumb|right|[[Craigenputtock|Craigenputtock House]] 1829]]
Jane's tutor [[Edward Irving]] had introduced her to Carlyle in 1821, with whom she came to have a mutual romantic attraction. The couple married in 1826 and moved to [[21 Comely Bank]], [[Edinburgh]]. In 1828, they moved to [[Craigenputtock]]. Thomas was often busy writing, while Jane remained dutiful in doing the housework. In 1834, the Carlyles moved to [[5 Cheyne Row]], [[Chelsea, London]]. Jane took on the added job of keeping the neighbourhood quiet so that her husband could write undisturbed. [[Phyllis Rose]] wrote "the quintessential expression of Jane's role within the marriage was her continuing battle to protect her husband from the crowing of cocks."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Rose |first1=Phyllis |title=Parallel Lives |date=1983 |publisher=Random House |location=New York |isbn=0394725808 |page=246}}</ref>
In an 1844 letter to her husband, Jane wrote about this arrangement. "I slept much better last night—in spite of cocks of every variety of power, a dog, and a considerable rumblement of carts! but the evil of these things was not doubled and tripled for me by the reflection that <small>YOU</small> were being kept awake by them".<ref>{{cite book |editor-last1=Bliss |editor-first1=Trudy |title=Jane Welsh Carlyle: A New Section of Her Letters |date=1950 |publisher=The MacMillan Company |location=New York |page=148 |edition=Second}}</ref> Despite such remarks, the marriage was ultimately loving, as another letter from a week later shows: "I am always wondering since I came here how I can ever in my angriest moods talk about leaving you for good and all—for to be sure if I ''were'' to leave you today ''on that principle'' I should need absolutely to go back tomorrow ''to see how you were taking it!''"<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Carlyle |first=J. B. W. |date=1844-04-20 |title=JWC
Their voluminous correspondence has been published, and the letters show that the couple's affection for each other was marred by frequent quarrels. [[Samuel Butler (novelist)|Samuel Butler]] once wrote: "It was very good of God to let Carlyle and Mrs. Carlyle marry one another and so make only two people miserable instead of four."<ref>{{Cite dictionary |year=2016 |title=Samuel Butler |encyclopedia=Oxford Essential Quotations |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191826719.001.0001/q-oro-ed4-00002407 |editor-last1=Ratcliffe |editor-first1=Susan |language=en |doi=10.1093/acref/9780191826719.001.0001 |isbn=9780191826719}}</ref>
[[Margaret Oliphant]], a personal friend of the Carlyles, opined that the marriage's "canker" came chiefly from Jane.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Haythornthwaite |first=J.A. |title="That False and Odious Impression":
Historian Paul Johnson notes in ''Creators'' that she not only irked her husband but made prickly comments about others. One target was fellow female writer [[George Eliot]] (Mary Ann Evans), whose decision to live openly with her married lover [[George Henry Lewes]] had scandalised London society. Seeing the pair at the theatre one evening, Jane remarked of Eliot, "Poor soul! There never was a more absurd miscalculation than ''her'' constituting herself an improper ''woman''. She looks Propriety personified. Oh, so ''slow''!"<ref>Haight, Gordon S., ''George
The Poetry Foundation's biography of [[Leigh Hunt]] says that his famous poem "Jenny Kiss'd Me" was inspired by Carlyle's wife.<ref>{{cite web | title=Leigh Hunt | website=Poetry Foundation | url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/leigh-hunt | access-date=2024-06-29 }}</ref>{{NoteTag|"Jenny Kiss'd Me" by [[Leigh Hunt]]:
Jenny kiss'd me.<ref>{{cite web | last=Hunt | first=Leigh | title=Jenny Kiss’d Me by Leigh Hunt | website=Poetry Foundation | url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50495/jenny-kissd-me | access-date=2024-06-29 }}</ref></poem>}}
Jane was jealous of a friendship her husband had with the socialite and hostess [[Lady Harriet Mary Montagu]] (later Lady Ashburton).<ref>{{Cite book|last=Rose|first=Phyllis|title=Parallel Lives: Five Victorian Marriages|publisher=[A. Knopf]|year=1984|isbn=0-394-52432-2|pages=248–254|language=English}}</ref> Despite the platonic nature of the friendship, Jane expressed her jealousy and anger in a letter dated in 1856. {{cn|date=December 2022}}
===Relationship with Geraldine Jewsbury===
[[File:Jane Welsh Carlyle, ca. 1856.jpg|thumb|left|Jane Welsh Carlyle, ca. 1856, by Mrs. Paulet
[[File:The grave of Jane Welsh Carlyle, St Mary's Church, Haddington.jpg|thumb|260px|The grave of Jane Welsh Carlyle, [[St Mary's Collegiate Church, Haddington|St Mary's Church, Haddington]]]]
Jane had a long friendship and correspondence with the writer [[Geraldine Jewsbury]]. The two women first met in 1841, when Jewsbury's letters to Carlyle expressing admiration for his work<ref name="Woolf, p. 143">Woolf, ''The Second Common Reader'' (Penguin [1932]{{Dubious|date=March 2024}}<!-- See talk page -->) p. 143</ref> and her religious doubts prompted him to extend an invitation to 5 Cheyne Row. Jewsbury was going through a depressive time, but she also contacted Thomas in the hopes of entering the literary realm in England. When Carlyle floated the idea of a second visit in 1843, Jane hesitated, finally admitting to Carlyle: {{"'}}Why I am afraid that having her beside me from morning till night would be dreadfully ''wearing'!''" She complained of how Jewsbury was "always in a state of emotion! dropping hot tears on my hands, and watching me and fussing me".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Carlyle |first=J. B. W. |date=1990-01-01 |title=JWC TO JEANNIE WELSH |url=http://carlyleletters.dukejournals.org/cgi/doi/10.1215/lt-18430118-JWC-JW-01 |journal=The Carlyle Letters Online |language=en |volume=16 |issue=1 |pages=19–24 |doi=10.1215/lt-18430118-JWC-JW-01 |issn=1532-0928 }}{{Dead link|date=September 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> While Jane's letters were destroyed by Jewsbury in keeping with their agreement to destroy their correspondence before their deaths, Jane's sudden death prevented her from destroying Jewsbury's half.{{Sfn|Cumming|2004|p=254}} Jewsbury's letters evince her passionate feelings for Jane: "I feel towards you much more like a lover than a female friend".<ref>Quoted in Woolf, ''The Second Common Reader'' (Penguin [1932]) p. 144</ref>
They often had disagreements about common social issues of the era such as the place of men in women's lives and the purpose of women in general. Jewsbury was not opposed to marriage, but she thought man and woman should be equal in marriage; she did not witness that with the Carlyles, and criticised the great man for it.<ref>Woolf,
[[File:Plaque to Jane Welsh Carlyle, St Mary's, Haddington.jpg|thumb|260px|Plaque to Jane Welsh Carlyle, St Mary's, Haddington]]
When they were on good terms, Jane helped Jewsbury with many of her literary works, including two of Jewsbury's most popular novels, ''Zoe: the History of Two Lives'',<ref>Woolf, ''The Second Common Reader'' (Penguin [1932]) p. 147-8</ref> and ''The Half Sisters'', which Jewsbury wanted to dedicate to her.<ref>Woolf, ''The Second Common Reader'' (Penguin [1932]) p. 150</ref>
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In 1857, Jewsbury became romantically involved with [[Walter Mantell]], and the two women became distant. But near the end of her life, when Jane was very ill, the two reconnected. When Jane died, Jewsbury spoke of her as "the friend of my heart".<ref>Quoted in A Booth, ''Homes and Haunts'' (2016) p. 232</ref>
[[Virginia Woolf]] based a 1929 article in the ''[[Times Literary Supplement]]'' on Jewsbury's letters to Jane Carlyle,<ref>A Booth, ''Homes and Haunts'' (2016) p. 244</ref> later published in
==Letters==
[[File:Plaque to Jane Welsh Carlyle, 23 George Square, Edinburgh.JPG|thumb|250px|Plaque to Jane Welsh Carlyle, 23 George Square, Edinburgh]]
Throughout her life, Jane Carlyle valued letters. "A newspaper is very pleasant when one is expecting nothing at all; but when it comes in place of a letter it is a positive insult to one's feelings."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bliss |title=Jane Welsh Carlyle |page=52}}</ref> It was her husband who established the notion of Jane as a literary talent with his oft-quoted reaction to reading her letters (8 July 1866):<blockquote>The whole of yesterday I spent in reading and arranging the Letters of 1857; such a day's ''reading'' as I perhaps never had in my life before. ... Her ''sufferings'' seem little short of those in an hospital fever-ward, as she painfully drags herself about; and yet constantly there is such an electric shower of all-illuminating brilliancy, penetration, recognition, wise discernment, just enthusiasm, humour, grace, patience, courage, love,—and in fine of spontaneous ''nobleness'' of mind and intellect,—as I know not where to parallel!</blockquote>He continued with an estimation of her writing talents which became the basis of claims that Jane might have been a novelist, if only she had not married him:<blockquote>As to 'talent,' epistolary and other, these ''Letters'', I perceive, equal and surpass whatever of best I know to exist in that kind; for 'talent,' 'genius,' or whatever we may call it, what an evidence, if my little woman needed that to me! Not all the ''[[George Sand|Sands]]'' and ''Eliots'' and babbling ''cohue'' [band] of 'celebrated scribbling Women' that have strutted over the world, in my time, could, it seems to me, if all boiled down and distilled to essence, make one such woman.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Christianson |first=Aileen |title=The Carlyle Encyclopedia |publisher=Fairleigh Dickinson University Press |year=2004 |editor-last=Cumming |editor-first=Mark |location=Madison and Teaneck, NJ |pages=279–282 |chapter=Letters of Jane Welsh Carlyle}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Carlyle |first=Thomas |title=Reminiscences |publisher=Kennedy & Boyd |year=2009 |editor-last=Campbell |editor-first=Ian |edition=Reprint |location=Glasgow |pages=141–142 |editor-last2=Fielding |editor-first2=K. J.}}</ref></blockquote>The passages reflect Carlyle's grief in response to the content of Jane's letters. [[Phyllis Rose]] writes that "few women in history - or even literature - were more successful at making their husbands feel guilty than Jane Carlyle".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Rose |title=Parallel Lives |page=254}}</ref>▼
▲Throughout her life, Jane Carlyle valued letters. "A newspaper is very pleasant when one is expecting nothing at all; but when it comes in place of a letter it is a positive insult to one's feelings."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bliss |title=Jane Welsh Carlyle |page=52}}</ref> It was her husband who established the notion of Jane as a literary talent with his oft-quoted reaction to reading her letters (8 July 1866):<blockquote>The whole of yesterday I spent in reading and arranging the Letters of 1857; such a day's ''reading'' as I perhaps never had in my life before. ... Her ''sufferings'' seem little short of those in an hospital fever-ward, as she painfully drags herself about; and yet constantly there is such an electric shower of all-illuminating brilliancy, penetration, recognition, wise discernment, just enthusiasm, humour, grace, patience, courage, love,—and in fine of spontaneous ''nobleness'' of mind and intellect,—as I know not where to parallel!</blockquote>He continued with an estimation of her writing talents which became the basis of claims that Jane might have been a novelist, if only she had not married him:<blockquote>As to 'talent,' epistolary and other, these ''Letters'', I perceive, equal and surpass whatever of best I know to exist in that kind; for 'talent,' 'genius,' or whatever we may call it, what an evidence, if my little woman needed that to me! Not all the ''[[George Sand|Sands]]'' and ''Eliots'' and babbling ''cohue'' [band] of 'celebrated scribbling Women' that have strutted over the world, in my time, could, it seems to me, if all boiled down and distilled to essence, make one such woman.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Christianson |first=Aileen |title=The Carlyle Encyclopedia |publisher=Fairleigh Dickinson University Press |year=2004 |editor-last=Cumming |editor-first=Mark |location=Madison and Teaneck, NJ |pages=279–282 |chapter=Letters of Jane Welsh Carlyle}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Carlyle |first=Thomas |title=Reminiscences |publisher=Kennedy & Boyd |year=2009 |editor-last=Campbell |editor-first=Ian |edition=Reprint |location=Glasgow |pages=141–142 |editor-last2=Fielding |editor-first2=K. J.}}</ref></blockquote>The passages reflect Carlyle's grief in response to the content of Jane's letters. [[Phyllis Rose]] writes that "few women in history
Francis Wilson writes that "Jane’s letters, which have lost nothing of their freshness and mischief, take us immediately into her world, or rather into the world as she chose to construct it. She saw her letters as a roman fleuve ...in which she recorded conversations, sketched what she called 'dramas in one scene' and reshaped her days for comic effect."<ref>{{cite web |last1=Wilson |first1=Frances |title=How Jane Carlyle Survived a Miserable Marriage |url=https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/03/how-jane-carlyle-survived-a-miserable-marriage/ |website=The Spectator |access-date=22 October 2019}}</ref>▼
▲Francis Wilson writes that "
The Scottish philosopher [[David George Ritchie]], a friend of the Carlyle family, published a volume of her letters in 1889 under the title ''The Early Letters of Jane Welsh Carlyle.'' Since then a number of the Carlyle letters have been collected and published, including the multi-volume collection of the correspondence of both Jane and Thomas.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Campbell |first1=Ian |title=The Collected Letters of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle |date=1970 |publisher=Duke University Press |location=Durham, North Carolina |edition=Ongoing}}</ref>
In 1973, American scholar G. B. Tennyson described her as "one of the rare Victorian wives who are of literary interest in their own right ... to be remembered as one of the great letter writers (in some respects her
==Memorials==
She died in London on 21 April 1866 and is buried with her father in [[St Mary's Collegiate Church, Haddington]]. The grave (railed off) stands inside the church close to the west end.
A plaque to Jane stands on the west side of George Square in [[Edinburgh]].
==Notes==
{{NoteFoot}}
==References==
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==Further reading==
* Ashton, Rosemary (2001). ''Thomas and Jane Carlyle: Portrait of a Marriage''. London: Chatto & Windus.
* Bourne, H.R. Fox (1882). [https://archive.org/stream/gentlemansmagaz311unkngoog#page/n694/mode/2up "Carlyle and His Wife
* Brown, Francis (1910). [https://archive.org/stream/atlantic106bostuoft#page/380/mode/2up "Miss Martineau and the Carlyles
* Chamberlain, Kathy (2017). ''Jane Welsh and Her Victorian World''. New York: Overlook Duckworth.
* Collis, John Stewart (1971). ''The Carlyles: A Biography of Thomas and Jane Carlyle''. London: Sidgwick & Jackson.
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* Fielding, K. J.; David R. Sorensen & Rodger L. Tarr (2004). ''The Carlyles at Home and Abroad''. Aldershot, Hants, England: Ashgate Pub.
* Hanson, Lawrence & Elisabeth Hanson (1952). ''Necessary Evil; the Life of Jane Welsh Carlyle''. London: Constable.
* [[:en:Annie Elizabeth Nicholson Ireland|Ireland, Annie E.]] (1888). [https://archive.org/stream/gentlemansmagaz21unkngoog#page/n237/mode/2up "George Eliot and Jane Welsh Carlyle
* Ireland, Annie E. (1891). [http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89001946870;view=1up;seq=11 ''Life of Jane Welsh Carlyle'']. New York: C.L. Webster & Co.
* {{Cite web |date= |editor-last=Kinser |editor-first=Brent E. |title=The Carlyle Letters Online: A Victorian Cultural Reference |url=https://carlyleletters.dukeupress.edu/home |website= |ref={{harvid|CLO}}}}
* Morrison, Nancy Brysson (1974). ''True Minds: The Marriage of Thomas and Jane Carlyle''. London: J.M. Dent & Sons.
* [[Margaret Oliphant|Oliphant, Margaret]] (1883). [https://archive.org/stream/contemporaryrev22unkngoog#page/n620/mode/2up "Mrs. Carlyle
* Scudder, Townsend (1939). ''Jane Welsh Carlyle''. New York: The Macmillan Company.
* Surtees, Virginia (1986). ''Jane Welsh Carlyle''. Salisbury, Wiltshire: Michael Russell.
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*{{UK National Archives ID}}
* {{NPG name|name=Jane Baillie Carlyle (née Welsh)}}
* [https://haddingtonshistory.org.uk/Resources-links Haddington's History Society]
▲ Jenny kiss’d me when we met,
▲ Jumping from the chair she sat in;
▲ Time, you thief, who love to get
▲ Sweets into your list, put that in!
▲ Say I’m weary, say I’m sad,
▲ Say that health and wealth have miss’d me,
▲ Say I’m growing old, but add,
{{Thomas Carlyle}}
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[[Category:Scottish letter writers]]
[[Category:Women letter writers]]
[[Category:1801 births]]
[[Category:1866 deaths]]
[[Category:Thomas Carlyle]]
[[Category:People from Haddington, East Lothian]]
[[Category:19th-century
[[Category:19th-century
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