author
Jane West
1758–1852
A self-taught English novelist and poet, she wrote sharp, morally driven fiction under the names Prudentia Homespun and Mrs. West. Her books were popular in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, blending storytelling with strong views about education, society, and character.
1 Audiobook
The loyalists : an historical novel, Vol. 1-3
by Jane West
About the author
Born Jane Iliffe in London in 1758, she moved with her family to Desborough, Northamptonshire, at age eleven. Sources describe her as largely self-educated, and she began writing young, first in poetry before building a long career as a novelist and moral writer.
She married Thomas West, a yeoman farmer, in 1783 and had three children. Writing as Prudentia Homespun and Mrs. West, she published novels, poetry, educational works, and conduct literature; among her early novels were The Advantages of Education (1793) and A Gossip's Story (1796).
Her work is often described as conservative in outlook, especially in its views on politics and women’s roles in society. Though less widely read now than in her own time, she remains a notable figure in English popular fiction of the Romantic period, and she died in Little Bowden on March 25, 1852.