Porter, Jane, 1776-1850

Jane Porter (1776-1850) was a best selling British historical novelist and the author of Thaddeus of Warsaw (1804) and The Scottish chiefs (1810).

Francis Legatt Chantrey was a popular and successful sculptor who made portrait busts of many of the most distinguished men of his time, including George IV, Sir Walter Scott, William Wordsworth and James Watt. He was knighted by William IV in 1835.

English novelist.

English novelist. She live in Edinburgh and London and was the author of about five romantic novels.

Jane Porter was an enormously popular Scots novelist. Her highly romantic novels generally had historic or exotic settings, and followed a pattern of moral and chivalric behavior; she wrote several plays, with less success. Her family was poor but respectable, and her younger sister Anna Maria was a successful writer in a similar vein, while her brother Robert, a painter, author, and soldier, married a Russian princess and was knighted in both Sweden and England.

Porter was born in 1776; travelled with her widowed mother from Durham, England to Edinburgh, and was educated there; Sir Walter Scott became a friend of the family, and Jane wrote two historical romances, Thaddeus of Warsaw (1803) and The Scottish chiefs (1810); wrote plays which were less successful; other novels include Duke Christian of Luneburg (1824) and The pastor's fire-side (1832); she died in 1850.

Jane Porter's brother, Robert, was appointed historical painter to the czar of Russia in 1804.

Jane Porter, a Scottish novelist, was born in Durham (Scotland) and she was the older sister of Anna Maria Porter. After the death of their father, the family settled in Edinburgh, where they enjoyed the friendship of Sir Walter Scott. Jane's novel THADDEUS OF WARSAW (1803) is one of the earliest examples of the historical novel and went through several editions. THE SCOTTISH CHIEF (1810) a novel about William Wallace, was also a success and has remained popular with Scottish children. Jane wrote a number of novels, as well as two plays; the latter, however, were less successful. She also contributed to various periodicals. Jane and Anna Maria, were the sisters of Sir Robert Ker Porter, the historical painter.

Anna Maria Porter, like her sister Jane, was also a novelist and a poet. At the age of 12 Anna Maria published the novel ARTLESS TALES. She was in London by the 1790s, publishing verse in the UNIVERSAL MAGAZINE. She wrote a short novel WALSH COLVILLE which was published anonymously in 1797. Though her sister was the more popular writer, Anna was the more prolific. She collaborated with her sister Jane, and wrote THE HUNGARIAN BROTHERS (3 vol., 1807), a historical romance set against the French Revolutionary Wars, which was a huge success, and was published in several editions.

Jane Porter, a British novelist and playwright, was best known for her novel, Thaddeus of Warsaw (1803), which is a fictional account of the doomed Polish independence struggle of the 1790s.

Porter also pioneered the form of the historical romance, later adopted by Walter Scott. Her novels written using this form include, The pastor's fireside (1817) and Duke Christian of Luneberg (1824). Porter's private papers including poems, letters, and personal diaries, are deposited at the Folger Library.