Rachel: A Tale

The Author

Jane Taylor (1783-1824), poet and novelist, was born in London to Ann Martin Taylor and Isaac Taylor, an engraver, painter, and minister. Taylor frequently collaborated with her sister Ann. A few of their poems, including “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” (first published as “The Star”), later became nursery rhymes. Following her sister’s marriage, Jane moved with her brother Isaac to his home in Devon, where she composed her first solo work, the children’s novel Display: A Tale for Young People (1815), as well as the satire Essays in Rhyme on Morals and Manners (1816). She maintained her focus on children’s literature and, beginning in 1816, was a regular contributor to Youth’s Magazine.


Taylor’s work was widely reviewed and translated during her lifetime, and poet Robert Browning acknowledged her influence on his work. Contemporary critic Stuart Curran noted, “Taylor’s capacity to reveal the inner life as a thing is, it could be asserted, unrivaled in English literature before Dickens.” Jane Taylor, was, according to Stuart Curran, the only woman Romantic poet who specialized in satire: her style is like Jane Austen's but from a middle-class Dissenting perspective and milieu.


The Tale

The tale features an unexpectedly awkward and plain heroine. Rachel and her silly but beautiful cousin Sophia try to gain the affections of the hero, Mr. Tompkins. Interestingly, the tale ends with: 'time alone can discover in whose possession he left his heart; but it is expected his next visit to E------ will ascertain the fact'.


Contemporary Review

The New Monthly Magazine, 1817 - We were at a loss under what head to class this excellent little piece; and had some thoughts at first of giving it a place under the head of romance; but upon second consideration the book appeared to be too good for such an allotment, and not well knowing how to announce it, we have mentioned it here as admirably calculated for female education. The story is simple, but forcibly instructive, and exhibits, with great life, the contrast between affected sentiment and the sensibility of nature. There are also many valuable remarks scattered throughout on the necessity of cultivating the art of pleasing, no less than of adhering firmly to the simplicity and candour of truth.