Jane Colman Turell (1708–1735) was an 18th-century American colonial poet. A gifted young scholar, her father provided an unusually good education for a young woman of this period.[1] She was the first of a number of prolific women poets whose works were published in the colonies.[2] Born in Boston, she was the only daughter of Dr. Benjamin Colman, a clergyman and writer. Encouraged by her father to follow literary pursuits, she started writing poetry at the age of 11.[3] At the age of 19, she married Rev. Ebenezer Turell of Medford, Massachusetts. A writer of "classic" poetry focused primarily on religion and family life, she modeled her life and writings after Elizabeth Singer Rowe.[4] Turrell's contemporaries were Francis Knapp, Benjamin Colman, Roger Wolcott, Mather Byles, and Rev. John Adams.[5]
Turell died at the age of 27. She wrote about her experience with childbirth, which included stillbirth, early death of her infants, and painful occurrences.[1] Her letters, diary extracts, short religious essays and pious verse were collected in a pamphlet and published by her husband immediately after her death in 1735,[6] as Reliquiate Turellae et Lachrymae Paternal,[7] and reprinted in 1741 as Memoirs of the Life and Death of the Pious and Ingenious Mrs. Jane Turell.[8]
References
edit- ^ a b Lepore, Jill (2014). Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin. Vintage; Illustrated edition. ISBN 978-0307948830.
- ^ Tierney, Helen (1 January 1999). Women's Studies Encyclopedia. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 1092–. ISBN 978-0-313-31072-0.
- ^ Sears, Edward Isidore; Gorton, David Allyn; Woodman, Charles H. (1871). The National Quarterly Review (Public domain ed.). Pudney & Russell. pp. 335–.
- ^ Bigold, Melanie (12 January 2013). Women of Letters, Manuscript Circulation, and Print Afterlives in the Eighteenth Century: Elizabeth Rowe, Catharine Cockburn and Elizabeth Carter. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 89–. ISBN 978-1-137-03357-4.
- ^ Bronson, Walter Cochrane (1919). A short history of American literature (Public domain ed.). Heath. pp. 37–.
- ^ May, Caroline (1854). The American Female Poets: With Biographical and Critical Notices (Public domain ed.). Lindsay & Blakiston. pp. 171–.
- ^ Colman, Benjamin (1735-04-06). Reliquiae Turellae, et lachrymae paternae. The father's tears over his daughter's remains. Two sermons preach'd at Medford, April 6. 1735. / By Benjamin Colman, D.D. ; The Lord's Day after the funeral of his beloved daughter Mrs. Jane Turell. ; To which are added, some large memoirs of her life and death, by her consort, the Reverend Mr. Ebenezer Turell, M.A. Pastor of the church in Medford. ; [Four lines from Psalms]. Boston: S. Kneeland & T. Green, for J. Edwards and H. Foster in Cornhill.
- ^ Davis, Cynthia J.; West, Kathryn (28 March 1996). Women Writers in the United States. Oxford University Press. pp. 18–. ISBN 978-0-19-535812-4.