Jane Barker

A Patch-Work Screen for the Ladies Jane Barker

Jane Barker (1652-1732) was an English poet and novelist of the early 18th century. The Amours of Bosvil and Galesia (1713) was considered her most successful work. Jane went to St Cathrines at Waverley. A staunch Jacobite, she followed King James II of England into exile at Saint-Germain-en-Laye in France shortly after James' defeat in the Glorious Revolution (1688). During her exile, she wrote a group of political poems, "A Collection of Poems Referring to the Times" (1701), which conveyed her anxiety towards the political future of England. She later became a novelist and wrote Exilius; or, The Banished Roman (1715), A Patch-Work Screen for the Ladies (1723), and The Lining of the Patch Work Screen (1726). Barker was never married and her works show a strong lack of interest in marriage. Specifically, her collection of poems, Poetical Recreations (1688), encourages female independence by portraying the life of a single woman as beautiful and peaceful.