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After the death of her father Jane Porter moved to Edinburgh in 1780 with her mother, her three brothers, and her younger sister. She and her sister attended George Fulton's school, where the 'lessons were always chosen from the noblest subjects,' while she also heard tales of heroism from the 'several accomplished scholars and esteemed friends who visited my honoured mother's unpretending tea-table' (The Scottish Chiefs x). These friends have been said to include the young Walter Scott. However, either he did not meet Jane, or was only briefly introduced to the girl, because there is a much later letter written to him by Jane Porter from Long Ditton, where the family did not move till around 1804. In this letter Porter comments on the recent nature of their acquaintance. [1]

Of Scotland Porter remarks in her retrospective introduction to the 1831 edition of The Scottish Chiefs that 'there is a spirit of wholesome knowledge in the country, pervading all ranks, which passes from one to the other like the atmosphere they breathe; and I may truly say, that I was hardly six years of age when I first heard the names of William Wallace and Robert Bruce: -not from gentlemen and ladies, readers of history; but from the maids in the nursery, and the serving-man in the kitchen' (viii). She likewise remembers a 'venerable old woman called Luckie Forbes' who, telling her tales from the history of Scotland, nonetheless, according to Jane's memory, possessed no other book than the Bible (viii-ix). In the retrospective preface to the 1840 edition of The Scottish Chiefs Porter further remarks about Luckie: 'I must avow that while learning my school-lessons of general history from higher hands, to this respected old woman's endearing and often eloquent manner of relating the adventures of the Scottish chief, I owe my early admiration for his character' (15). Porter's reading was also such as to encourage this tendency: 'History and biography, from the Sacred Scriptures to Plutarch's Lives; from the black-letter Chronicles of England to Rapin and David Hume; and all poetry connected with the events they told of, from Greece's Homer to our British Shakespeare, from the ballad of Chevy Chase to that of our soul-stirring Rule Britannia; this was the food with which we loved to nourish the favourite meditations of our minds,' she comments in the 1840 retrospective preface (15-16).

Porter's fascination with national heroism did not end there. By 1794 the Porters had moved to London to be with Robert who, according to S.C. Hall, was studying at the Royal Academy in 1790 (145). He would have been only thirteen. Mona Wilson remarks of a few years later, 'The society of young painters established by Francia and Girtin in 1799 used to meet in Robert's studio at 16 Great Newport Street, Leicester Square . . . The object of the "Brothers" was to inaugurate a school of historic landscape, and on each occasion a poetic subject was chosen for competitive sketches. Jane Porter was sometimes present and invited to select the themes, and there she met John Sell Cotman, whose experiences [as a poor artist arriving in London] she appropriated for her Thaddeus of Warsaw' (120).

Thaddeus of Warsaw was not, however, Porter's first literary attempt. According to the Dictionary of Literary Biography in 1797 Jane and her sister helped 'Robert and Thomas Frognall Didbin on an ill-fated periodical called The Quiz' (265). The Spirit of the Elbe was published anonymously in 1799, while in 1801 The Two Princes of Persia was published in one volume by Crosby and Letterman.[2]

In 1803 Porter published the more successful Thaddeus of Warsaw. The first part tells of the Polish struggle for independence after the Russian invasion of 1792, while the remainder recounts the struggles of Porter's hero, Thaddeus Sobieski, on reaching England as a refugee. Jane Porter tells how her brother's meeting with General Kosciuszko, the hero of the conflict, inspired her. In her retrospective introduction to the 1832 edition of Thaddeus of Warsaw she recalls how many of the principal characters of those times went to visit the patriot: 'An old friend of my family was amongst them; and whose warm heart encouraging the enthusiasm of ours, he took my brother Robert to visit the Polish veteran' (xi). According to Mona Wilson, Farington's similar description of Benjamin West's visit to the General suggests that he was the friend mentioned (121). At any rate, the General, still weakened by his injuries, 'took [Robert Ker Porter] kindly by the hand, and spoke to him words of generous encouragement, in whatever path of virtuous ambition he might take. They have never been forgotten. Is it then to be wondered at, that, combining the mute distress I had so often contemplated in other victims of similar misfortunes, with the magnanimous object then described to me by my brother, that the first story of heroism my young imagination should think of embodying into shape, should be founded on the actual scenes of Kosciusko's sufferings, and moulded out of his virtues!' (x). However, Jane Porter explains that, for reasons of modesty, she 'took a younger, and less pretending agent, in the personification of a descendant of the great John Sobieski' (x).

Porter's childhood memories of London also provided her with inspiration. In her retrospective introduction to Thaddeus of Warsaw Porter writes how she was affected by the sight of refugees wandering in London. 'In the days of my almost childhood, - that is, eight years before I dipped my pen in their tears, - I remember seeing many of those hapless refugees wandering about St. James's Park. They had sad companions in the like miseries, though from different enemies, in the emigrants from France; - and memory can never forget the variety of wretched, yet noble-looking, visages I then contemplated, in the daily walks which my mother's own little family-group were accustomed to take there' (viii). Thaddeus of Warsaw and Porter's account of her experience with the refugees suggest what was to be an enduring theme in he writing, her concern with the struggle of small nations against larger imperial forces. However, Porter also acknowledged that there was a point at which such struggle became futile or unnecessary – particularly when the conquerors of such a nation combined some connection to its hereditary rulers with wisdom in their rule. That Thaddeus of Warsaw may also have been inspired by debates about national identity closer to home is suggested by her account of her mother's guests while the novel was being written. In a footnote about these guests in her preface to the 1840 recollective edition Porter remarks: 'In this bright little circle were also the revered female names of Mrs Hannah More, Mrs. Barbauld, the late Lady de Crespigny, (of literary and beneficent memory,) Mrs Hamilton, authoress of Modern Philosophers, (the fine principles and wit of which work, so put those vain and mischievous workers to the rout in England, that our then venerable sovereign George III. distinguished her with a particular mark of the royal favour). We had likewise her nobly talented friend Miss Benger, the charming historian of Anne Bullen and Mary Queen of Scots' (17).

Though so inspired, Porter displayed the conventional modesty of the woman writer of the period in recalling how she was reluctant to publish the book, despite the enthusiasm of those near her. Shrewdly, however, in her retrospective introduction to Thaddeus of Warsaw, she simultaneously emphasises her modesty and her originality: 'I argued, in opposition to the wish, its different construction to all other novels or romances which had gone before it; from Richardson's time-honoured domestic novels, to the penetrating feeling in similar scenes by the pen of Henry MacKenzie; and again, Charlotte Smith's more recent, elegant, but very sentimental love stories. But the most formidable of all were the wildly interesting romances of Anne Radcliffe, whose indeed magical wand of wonders and mysteries was then the ruling style of the day' (xi). Porter also claims that Sir Walter Scott 'did me the honour to adopt the style or class of novel of which "Thaddeus of Warsaw" was the first' (vi).

In the year of the publication of Thaddeus of Warsaw, 1803, however, London was not just a home for refugees, but, it was felt, potentially under threat of invasion itself. At the time when fears of a French invasion were mounting, W.O. Porter wrote to Mrs Jane Porter at 6 Gerrard Street, London, from the Isle of Skye to invite his sisters to pay him a visit if the invasion proved 'more than threats'. By 1804 the Porter sisters and their mother had moved to the village of Thames Ditton, Surrey. In August William wrote to his mother there, hoping that the country air would re-establish his sister's health, though, ever cautious, he also warns about the danger of the air at sunset and sunrise near the Thames.

At this time, the young Jane Porter's fame was considerable and Mona Wilson gives Haydon's account of how she and her sister were invited by Lord Abercorn to tea:

At this time Thaddeus of Warsaw was making a noise. "Gad," said Lord Abercorn, "we must have these Porters. Write, my dear Lady Abercorn." She wrote. An answer came from Jane Porter that they could not afford the expense of travelling. A cheque was sent. They arrived. Lord Abercorn peeped at them as they came through the hall, and running by the private staircase to Lady Abercorn, exclaimed: "Witches, my Lady! I must be off," and immediately started post, and remained away till they were gone.

After explaining the sisters' appearance by very reasonably suggesting they had not travelled in their best clothes, Mona Wilson adds rather more favourable testimony to the dignity of Jane Porter's appearance, citing Mr Crabbe Robinson's remark that Jane Porter's 'stately figure and graceful manners made an impression on me' (129).

As the Porters' alleged inability to pay travelling expenses to Lord Abercorn's suggests, the family was not unfamiliar with financial difficulty. Neither were they strangers to ill-health. In 1808 Mrs Porter was severely ill, though, nursed by Jane, she recovered. Anna Maria's health was already too delicate to allow her to share her sister's efforts, as William remarks in a letter to Mrs Jane [Blenkinsop] Porter on 11th October 1808.

In 1806 John Porter wrote to Jane to tell her that he received a letter informing him that a writ of execution had been taken out against him and that if he were taken upon it, 'nothing but the payment of the whole sum would release [him] from Newgate.' William Ogilvie Porter likewise recounts that financial difficulties prevented him from providing his sisters and mother with the annuity he wishes. On 23rd May 1813 he writes to Jane, asking her to pay a forgotten account with the enclosed notes - the account 'had entirely escaped my recollection, amidst the various troubles and embarrassments that have encountered me during the last ten years.' On 4th October of the same year he writes to Mrs Jane [Blenkinsop] Porter at Sir Robert Porter's house in Weymouth Street, London, that, 'Experience in life has taught me circumspection in all money engagements - for want of that circumspection, I once found myself where I trust I shall never be found again.' He goes on to claim that if his income improves the slight amount he expects it to, 'I will do all I can for you; and what I can do, shall be annuity.' However, seven years later, this improvement in his affairs has not taken place. He writes to Jane Porter on 31st May 1820 in a way which suggests that Jane's concern and financial shrewdness, 'had my circumstances been what you no doubt supposed them to be, I would most cheerfully contribute fifty pounds a year to my mother's comfort, or to yours: but by the strictest economy I can barely make that appearance without which I must sink into obscurity as a Physician.' By the latter, he means keeping a carriage. His sister, however, seems to have remained sceptical.

In the midst of these financial concerns, Jane Porter continued to write and in 1810 published The Scottish Chiefs which deals with William Wallace's fight to free Scotland from Edward I (1297-1305). She herself was far from advocated Scottish independence, however, and was to distance herself from it in her 1840 preface where she gives an account of the immediate inspiration for the book:

Sir John Moore, my dear absent brother's "master in arms," had just closed his career of devotedness to "England's glory" on the heights of Corunna; and many of the gallant leaders, (also our friends) who had followed his brave footsteps thither, had likewise found their "gory bed" on the same weeping field of victory. It might then have been truly said, "Alas for Caledonia! The flowers of her forest are again wed away!" and for some of them being of the race of the chiefs of my early admiration, I felt as if sweetly though sadly mingling a silent lament for the sons, in the Coronach my pen then meditated to raise to the memories of their forefathers. (19-20)

It is the bravery of Scottish soldiers acting as part of the British army that Porter links to her novel, her most successful work. As Porter notes in the 1840 preface, Joanna Baillie 'in a note to her noble poem of "William Wallace" gave her cordial suffrage to [Porter's] previous management of the same heroic subject' (38). There is a tradition that Scott admitted to George IV that The Scottish Chiefs gave inspiration to the writing of Waverley, while the book is said to have been proscribed by Napoleon. Porter's fame was certainly international. A footnote to the 1831 introduction of Thaddeus of Warsaw states that it was after the publication of Thaddeus and The Scottish Chiefs in German that Jane Porter was made a lady of the Chapter of St. Joachim and received the gold cross of the order from Wirtemberg (vii).

Jane continued her career as a novelist with The Pastor's Fireside; A Novel, which was published in 1815. Though not as successful as The Scottish Chiefs, it was still being enjoyed several years later, as suggested by a letter from W.O. Porter to Jane on 7th March 1817. He writes to ask that she give her signature to his autograph-collecting friend, W.P. Lervell [?] Esq. He 'is now reading your Pastor's Fireside, and in common with everyone of taste is incessantly charmed by the uninterrupted interest of the whole, and that charm warmed into admiration, by the unstooping elegance of the stile [sic], and vast diffusity of its Christian sentiments.'

In 1820 there is some evidence that Sir Robert Ker Porter, newly returned from his travels, and his sister Jane intended to work together on arranging his notes. In July 1820 W.O. Porter writes of his delight at hearing of Robert's return home after Jane Porter had sent a letter to his wife on the subject. William adds that he had earlier written to his sister to say that 'she and you would come here to arrange your notes and write your work,' though William complains that he has heard nothing further about it. After Robert Ker's death, however, Jane was to play a greater role in attempting to ensure the recognition of her brother's work.

Meanwhile, staying not at Bristol, as William had suggested, but in Thames Ditton, Porter began work on several plays. The DLB notes that the first, Egmont, or the Eve of St Alyne was seen and liked by Edmund Kean, but it was neither acted nor published (268). Switzerland was performed once in London's Theatre Royal on Drury Lane on 15th February 1819. Genest's entry in Some Account of the English Stage reads 'Never acted, Switzerland - Kean - H. Kemble - H. Johnston - D. Fisher - Hamblin - Mrs Glover - Mrs W. West - this T[ragedy] was written by Miss Porter - it was acted but once' (viii: 683). On 28th January 1822 Owen, Prince of Powys was staged at the same place but was acted only three times (Genest ix: 146).

According to the Dictionary of Literary Biography the Porter sisters and their mother moved from Thames Ditton to Esher, Surrey, in 1822. However, the collection at Durham University Library contains letters addressed to Jane Porter and her mother at Thames Ditton well after that time with the last letter from W.O. Porter to Miss Porter at Ditton from Bristol being dated 12th August, 1824. The first letter in the collection to the new address is from W.O. Porter to Jane Porter on the 24th March 1826. This suggests that the two sisters and their mother moved to Esher slightly later than has been thought. Of Esher Mona Wilson recounts Jane commenting: 'Our abode at Esher was in the village, and a cottage still; but its situation was cheerful and airy, on the summit of a hill (for my mother loved an open view), commanding all those various points which had rendered that perfectly rural spot an object of interest to all respecters of historical and poetical recollections' (140).

In 1824 Jane Porter published Duke Christian of Luneberg, or Traditions of the Hartz. Jane Porter records in her preface to the illustrated edition of The Scottish Chiefs (1840), it was written in response to a request from the Reverend Dr James Stanier Clarke (39). Dr Clarke was librarian to George IV and suggested that the King's ancestor, Duke Christian of Brunswick-Luneberg, would make a good subject for a novel. On one of the Porters' short visits to London Dr Clarke told Jane Porter, 'that his Majesty having had the works of the sister of Sir Robert Ker Porter recalled to his recollection by the then recent publication of her brother's "Travels in Persia," &c., (which were dedicated to the King,) he took my early published volumes from the royal shelf, and was so satisfied with the historical fidelity of the heroes they portrayed that Dr. Clarke was commanded to communicate to me his Majesty's gracious request that my next subject should be "The Life of his great and virtuous progenitor, Duke Christian of Luneberg"' (39). Doubtless the Christian heroes whom Porter had already sketched suggested that she would be ideal to write such panegyric. In following Dr Clarke's suggestion, Porter proved to be more co-operative than had Jane Austen. Nine years earlier Jane Austen had dedicated Emma to the Prince Regent on the suggestion of Dr Clarke (Tomalin 247). Clarke had also given her several suggestions for a novel, first advising her to base a novel around an English clergyman, then recommending that she write about the House of Saxe-Coburg in complement to Prince Leopold who was going to marry the Prince Regent's daughter, Charlotte - Austen excused herself by saying the project was beyond her (Tomalin 249).

After Duke Christian of Luneberg, Jane Porter moved to collaboration with her sister. In 1826 Anna Maria Porter and Jane each contributed to a collection of four short stories, Tales Round a Winter Hearth. In the 1840 retrospective preface Porter remarks that in her tale 'The Old House of Hontercombe, or Berenice's Pilgrimage', she was inspired by Sir Robert Ker's travels: 'I followed my brother's track in his Eastern travels, borrowing from his pilgrimage to ancient Babylon . . .I own it is the story most interesting to me that I ever wrote, for it took me to Mount Olivet and to Jerusalem, along with my young heroine' (41). In 1828 they repeated the experiment, with the three volume Coming Out, and the Field of Forty Footsteps, the former by Anna-Maria and the latter by Jane. In her prefatory address, Anna Maria Porter gives a word of explanation:

Appearing as I now do, for a second time, in a joint work with my sister, and once more taking that precedence of her to which I am in no way entitled, I trust the candid reader will believe me incapable of such assumption upon any other ground than that of a mutual persuasion, that the effect of our very different stories would be heightened by giving the tale of the lightest character first. (iv)

While Anna Maria's work was about society life, Jane had written a tale of national strife and tradition, based during the Commonwealth.

A more contemporary setting was provided for Jane Porter's next project. Jane Porter undertook to edit William Ogilivie's manuscript of Sir Edward Seaward's Narrative of his Shipwreck and Consequent Discovery of Certain Islands in the Caribean Sea: With a Detail of Many Extraordinary and Highly Interesting Events in His Life, from the Year 1733 to 1749 as Written in His Own Diary (1831). Of this S.C. Hall recalls, it 'was so like truth that (as I was told by one of the Admiralty clerks) three intelligent members of staff were employed for several days searching for evidence whether the island did or did not actually exist, whether any proofs of the history given of the castaways were traceable, and whether, of the many persons named, any had places in veritable history!' (144-45)

Jane Porter's mother died on 21st June 1831 and S.C. Hall remembers in the Retrospect of a Long Life that the inscription placed by the sisters on her grave said that they 'mourn in hope, humbly trusting to be born again with her into the blessed kingdom of their Lord and Saviour.' (145)

By the end of the following year Jane's sister was also dead. According to the preface to the 1840 edition of The Scottish Chiefs Anna Maria died while on a brief visit to William Porter at his Bristol home (24). A letter from William to Jane dated the 10th September 1832 refers to a possible inscription for Anna Maria's headstone, suggesting that Jane's sister had died a relatively short time before.[3] On this subject S.C. Hall recalls a promise made to Jane Porter that, 'whenever I visited Esher, I would place a flower on the grave-stone that covers the remains of her mother and sister in the churchyard of that pretty rural village of Surrey' (143).

After her sister's death, Porter became more of a wanderer, travelling in the south of England, staying in London and visiting Paris. While in London she records seeing Lord Byron at the house of William Sotheby. In her 1840 recollective preface she recalls that his appearance was like Sotheby's 'dream of Petrarch in his prime of manhood, musing his "high thoughts" by moonlight,' and she mentions that she was afterwards acquainted with his sister, 'Mrs. Leigh'; she also met Madame de Staël and, in Paris, her rival, Madame de Genlis (43-44).

In 1842 she paid a visit to her brother Sir Robert Ker Porter in St Petersburg. Sadly, soon after her arrival her brother died. Jane then travelled back to England and went about settling his estate, a task of some difficulty. In particular she wished to sell some of his watercolours, which had been assembled into book form partly by Robert himself and partly by Jane, to the British Museum. On 24th October 1842 she wrote to the Earl of Aberdeen, expressing her intention to offer her brother's book to the Museum at a price of five hundred guineas. Persuading the Museum to purchase her brother's work was an intricate process during which Porter showed considerable perseverance. On the 20th of October she asked Sir Frederick Madden for a list of those trustees who were dealing with her brother's work in order, if they were known to her, to write to them on the subject. On the 10th of November she writes to Madden that she has written to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Denham, Sir Henry Halford, Mr W.H. Hamilton and the Bishop of London, among others, on the matter.

In 1844 Porter moved to William's house in Bristol and remained there till she died on the 24th May 1850.

Notes

[1] See, for example, Mona Wilson, These were Muses. London: Sidgwick, 1924, 120. [2] See Nicholas A. Joukovsky, 'Jane Porter's First Novel: the Evidence of an Unpublished Letter.' Notes and Queries 235 (March 1990): 15-17. [3] Curiously, in the DLB Michael Adams records Anna Maria Porter's death as occurring on the 21st September 1832 (269).

Bibliography

Hall, A. M. 'Memories of Miss Jane Porter.' Art Journal 2 (1850): 221-223. Hall, S. C. Retrospect of a Long Life: from 1815 to 1883. Vol 2. London, 1883. 143-45. Joukovsky, Nicholas A. 'Jane Porter's First Novel: the Evidence of an Unpublished Letter.' Notes and Queries 235 (March 1990): 15-17. Kelly, Gary. English Fiction of the Romantic Period 1789-1830. London: Longman, 1989. Porter, Jane. The Scottish Chiefs. 2 vols. Standard Novels VII-VIII. London, 1831. - - -. The Scottish Chiefs, a Romance: Revised, Corrected and Illustrated with a New Retrospective Introduction, Notes, &c., by the Author. 2 vol. London, 1840 - - -, Thaddeus of Warsaw. London, 1831. ----, ed. Sir Edward Seaward's Narrative of his Shipwreck, and Discovery of Certain Islands in the Caribean Sea: With a Detail of Many Interesting and Extraordinary Events in His Life, between 1733 and 1749: As Written in His Own Diary. By William Ogilvie Porter. 2 vols. London, 1852. Porter, Jane. Letter to Walter Scott. [18--]. Department of Manuscripts. British Library, London. - - -. Letter to the Earl of Aberdeen. 24 October 1842. Aberdeen Papers, CCII. British Library, London. - - -. Letter to Sir Frederick Madden. 20 October 1842. Sir Frederick Madden, C, VII, 1842-1844. Department of Manuscripts. British Library, London. - - -. Letter to Sir Frederick Madden. Sir Frederick Madden, C, VII, 1842-1844. Department of Manuscripts. 10 November 1842. British Library, London. ----, and Anna Maria Porter. Coming Out, and the Field of the Forty Footsteps. 3 vols. London, 1828. - - -, and Anna Maria Porter. Tales Round a Winter Hearth. 2 vols. London, 1826. [Porter, John]. Letter to Jane Porter. 14 May 1806. Porter Family Correspondence A. Durham University Library Archives and Special Collections, Durham. Porter, William Ogilvie. Letter to Jane [Blenkinsop] Porter. 6 August 1803. Porter Family Correspondence A. Durham University Library Archives and Special Collections, Durham. - - -. Letter to Jane [Blenkinsop] Porter. 5 June 1804. Porter Family Correspondence A. Durham University Library Archives and Special Collections, Durham. - - -. Letter to Jane [Blenkinsop] Porter. 11 October 1808. Porter Family Correspondence A. Durham University Library Archives and Special Collections, Durham. - - -. Letter to Jane Porter. 21 May 1813. Porter Family Correspondence A. Durham University Library Archives and Special Collections, Durham. - - -. Letter to Jane [Blenkinsop] Porter. 3 October 1813. Porter Family Correspondence A. Durham University Library Archives and Special Collections, Durham. - - -. Letter to Jane Porter. 7 March 1817. Porter Family Correspondence A. Durham University Library Archives and Special Collections, Durham. - - -. Letter to Jane Porter. 31 May 1820. Porter Family Correspondence A. Durham University Library Archives and Special Collections, Durham. - - -. Letter to Sir Robert [Ker] Porter. 20 July 1820. Porter Family Correspondence A. Durham University Library Archives and Special Collections, Durham. [- - -]. Letter to Jane Porter. 12 August 1824. Porter Family Correspondence A. Durham University Library Archives and Special Collections, Durham - - -. Letter to Jane [Blenkinsop] Porter. [January 1825]. Porter Family Correspondence A. Durham University Library Archives and Special Collections, Durham - - -. Letter to Jane Porter. 10 September 1832. Porter Family Correspondence B. Durham University Library Archives and Special Collections, Durham. Tomalin, Claire. Jane Austen: A Life. London: Viking, 1997. Wilson, Mona. These were Muses. London: Sidgewick, 1924.

Fiona Price, University of Durham

© 2000 Fiona Price / Sheffield Hallam University