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Jane Welsh Carlyle

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Celebrity's Relative

The Resume

    (January 14, 1801-April 21, 1866)
    Born in Haddington, Scotland, United Kingdom
    Birth name was Jane Welsh
    Married essayist and historian Thomas Carlyle
    Correspondence with her husband and other literary figures published posthumously

Why she might be annoying:

    In her teens, she fell in love with her tutor (who was engaged to another woman).
    She took morphine for ailments that may have been psychosomatic.
    She and her husband frequently quarreled.
    Literary critic Phyllis Rose wrote, ‘Few women in history - or even literature - were more successful at making their husbands feel guilty than Jane Carlyle.’
    Samuel Butler wrote, ‘It was very good of God to let Carlyle and Mrs Carlyle marry one another, and so make only two people miserable and not four.’

Why she might not be annoying:

    Her husband insisted on keeping the windows open in all kinds of weather.
    Thomas Carlyle wrote, ‘She could do anything well to which she chose to give herself.... She had good sense that amounted to genius.’
    She reportedly died of shock after the carriage she was riding in accidentally ran over a dog.
    She inspired Leigh Hunt’s poem ‘Jenny Kissed Me.’
    Virginia Woolf called her ‘one of the great letter writers.’

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 5 Votes: 60.0% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 10 Votes: 30.0% Annoying