Dennis Williams
Gone but not forgotten
Re: Some great men of Birmingham..
The Brummie Mummy and the Botanical Gardens
Part One — The Mummy!
In 1827 prominent London bookseller and publisher Henry Colburn brought out an anonymous three-volume novel entitled The Mummy! A Tale of the Twenty-Second Century, a satirical and speculative story very much in the vein of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein which had appeared in 1818. The Mummy! happened to attract the attention of a well known landscape gardener and botanical writer named John Claudius Loudon, who reviewed the novel favourably in his widely-read Gardener's Magazine:
Jane and John Loudon
Mr Loudon was more enthusiastic about The Mummy! than the "faint praise" of his review might suggest, and he told his friends that he would dearly like to meet the as yet unknown author — a middle-aged man like himself, he imagined. In February 1830 a "woman friend" granted his wish. At a party she introduced him to Jane Webb, a young woman of just twenty-two summers — the author of the book he so admired. He had found his soul mate, and she her master: they married seven months later. By all accounts they lived happily ever after, though Jane had to give up her promising career as a science fiction writer. For John Loudon converted her to ... gardening.
Kitwell House [courtesy Bill Dargue]
The young bride Jane Webb Loudon turns out to be a Birmingham lass, born at Edgbaston on 19 August 1807. Her mother died when she was twelve: her father Thomas Webb (a Birmingham merchant) was grief-stricken. He took Jane on a tour of Europe, where she "learned several languages". She also began writing poetry about this time. Shortly after their return, they had to move from Edgbaston to Kitwell House (near Bartley Green to the south-west of Birmingham). Mr Webb had taken the loss of his wife badly and his business had suffered. He passed away in 1824, leaving seventeen-year-old Jane an orphan and unprovided for. Ever resourceful, she turned to writing to make ends meet, and published Prose and Verse by Jane Webb the same year. The Mummy! followed in 1827, running to a second edition in 1828, no doubt in response to Mr Loudon's gracious review. Another three-volume novel (Stories of a Bride) followed in 1829, and in 1830 her first non-fiction work for younger readers: Conversations upon Comparative Chronology and General History. When she met her future husband she was a successful writer, albeit anonymous (except for her juvenilia).
Marriage to John Loudon redirected her attention. Gardening (in the widest sense of the word) became her almost exclusive passion. She was her husband's secretary, travelling companion and research assistant, right through the most successful part of his career. The publication of his magnum opus (Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum) in 1838 saddled the family with £10,000 in debts, so Jane set to work in earnest, publishing at least a dozen books in five years on gardening for ladies and natural history for young people. After John Loudon's death in 1843, she edited further editions of his works and kept producing books of her own. Despite the award of a civil list pension of £100 a year in 1846, her debts still required her to work. In 1849-1851 she edited a weekly magazine: The Ladies' Companion at Home and Abroad. Her last book came out in 1855: it was somewhat aptly titled My Own Garden. Jane Webb Loudon died at the family home at 3 Porchester Terrace, Bayswater, London, on 13 July 1858, a month shy of her fifty-first birthday. A grant from the Royal Literary Fund enabled her daughter Agnes to erect a monument at Kensal Green Cemetery.
The Loudon Residence (Bayswater, London)
To be continues....
The Brummie Mummy and the Botanical Gardens
Part One — The Mummy!
In 1827 prominent London bookseller and publisher Henry Colburn brought out an anonymous three-volume novel entitled The Mummy! A Tale of the Twenty-Second Century, a satirical and speculative story very much in the vein of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein which had appeared in 1818. The Mummy! happened to attract the attention of a well known landscape gardener and botanical writer named John Claudius Loudon, who reviewed the novel favourably in his widely-read Gardener's Magazine:
Jane and John Loudon
Mr Loudon was more enthusiastic about The Mummy! than the "faint praise" of his review might suggest, and he told his friends that he would dearly like to meet the as yet unknown author — a middle-aged man like himself, he imagined. In February 1830 a "woman friend" granted his wish. At a party she introduced him to Jane Webb, a young woman of just twenty-two summers — the author of the book he so admired. He had found his soul mate, and she her master: they married seven months later. By all accounts they lived happily ever after, though Jane had to give up her promising career as a science fiction writer. For John Loudon converted her to ... gardening.
Kitwell House [courtesy Bill Dargue]
The young bride Jane Webb Loudon turns out to be a Birmingham lass, born at Edgbaston on 19 August 1807. Her mother died when she was twelve: her father Thomas Webb (a Birmingham merchant) was grief-stricken. He took Jane on a tour of Europe, where she "learned several languages". She also began writing poetry about this time. Shortly after their return, they had to move from Edgbaston to Kitwell House (near Bartley Green to the south-west of Birmingham). Mr Webb had taken the loss of his wife badly and his business had suffered. He passed away in 1824, leaving seventeen-year-old Jane an orphan and unprovided for. Ever resourceful, she turned to writing to make ends meet, and published Prose and Verse by Jane Webb the same year. The Mummy! followed in 1827, running to a second edition in 1828, no doubt in response to Mr Loudon's gracious review. Another three-volume novel (Stories of a Bride) followed in 1829, and in 1830 her first non-fiction work for younger readers: Conversations upon Comparative Chronology and General History. When she met her future husband she was a successful writer, albeit anonymous (except for her juvenilia).
Marriage to John Loudon redirected her attention. Gardening (in the widest sense of the word) became her almost exclusive passion. She was her husband's secretary, travelling companion and research assistant, right through the most successful part of his career. The publication of his magnum opus (Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum) in 1838 saddled the family with £10,000 in debts, so Jane set to work in earnest, publishing at least a dozen books in five years on gardening for ladies and natural history for young people. After John Loudon's death in 1843, she edited further editions of his works and kept producing books of her own. Despite the award of a civil list pension of £100 a year in 1846, her debts still required her to work. In 1849-1851 she edited a weekly magazine: The Ladies' Companion at Home and Abroad. Her last book came out in 1855: it was somewhat aptly titled My Own Garden. Jane Webb Loudon died at the family home at 3 Porchester Terrace, Bayswater, London, on 13 July 1858, a month shy of her fifty-first birthday. A grant from the Royal Literary Fund enabled her daughter Agnes to erect a monument at Kensal Green Cemetery.
The Loudon Residence (Bayswater, London)
To be continues....
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