The Corvey Novels Project at the University of Nebraska
— Studies in British Literature of the Romantic Period —
Biographical Sketch of Jane Harvey, with particular relevance to Any Thing But What You Expect
Jane Harvey (1776-?)
Although little is known of Jane Harvey, she is said to be a Tyneside poet and novelist. Born in 1776, Jane was the daughter of Elizabeth and Lawrance Harvey. The Harveys resided in Barnard Castle. Jane began her writing career rather early in life. At age 18 she published A Sentimental Tour of Newcastle. It was by "a Young Lady" and included sections on women and politics that would continue throughout the rest of her work. Poems on Various Subjects, 1797, included a sentimental ballad that Harvey had written at age 15, poems of praise for Anna Seward, Charlotte Smith, and Helen Maria Williams, as well as romantic Spenserian stanzas about her childhood.
Her novels, all published anonymously, are mainly published in London, with the exception of Any Thing But What You Expect (1819), which was published in Derby. Among her other novels are The Ambassador's Secretary: a Tale (1828), Auberry Stanhope: or, Memoirs of an Author (1814), Brougham Castle: a Novel (1816), The Castle of Tynemouth: a Tale (1806), Ethelia: a Tale (1814), The Governor of Belleville: a Tale (1808), Mountalyth: a Tale (1823), Records of a Noble Family (1814), Singularity, a Novel (1822), and Warkfield Castle: a Tale (1802). The novels are "well-told tales rich in unusual detail." Along with the novels, Jane Harvey also published short volumes of verses and tales for children. However, her Fugitive Pieces in 1841 was to be her last piece. It shows the obvious political undertones of Harvey's work when it mixes charming friendship poems with a witty and comical welcome to 'the railroad', and an "elegiac 'Conclusion' of 1840," all the while being a "tough political support for striking Tyneside keelmen and exploited female tailors."
SOURCE:Blain, Virginia, Clements, Patricia, and Isobel Grundy, eds. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. New Haven: Yale UP, 1990.