Jane Taylor (1783–1824) was an English poet and novelist who, with her sister Ann, wrote some of the first poetry collections meant for very young children. Her poem The Star became the nursery rhyme Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.
Works
Rhymes for the Nursery
A family of writers
Jane Taylor was born in London on 23 September 1783, the daughter of Isaac Taylor, an engraver and later a Nonconformist minister, and of Ann Martin Taylor, also a writer. The family lived at Lavenham in Suffolk and then at Colchester and Ongar in Essex.
All the children were taught engraving and writing at home. Jane and her elder sister Ann began publishing poems in magazines as teenagers.
Poems for children
Original Poems for Infant Minds (1804–1805) and Rhymes for the Nursery (1806), written by Jane and Ann with a few contributors, were among the first collections of poems written specially for small children. They were reprinted for decades and translated into several languages.
Their poems, simple and gently moral, describe daily life, animals and the world as children see it.
Later work
Jane also wrote a novel, Display (1815), and essays in verse, Essays in Rhyme (1816), and contributed to a magazine for young people.
She died of breast cancer at Ongar, in Essex, on 13 April 1824, aged forty, and is buried there.
Anecdotes
Mocked by Alice
Lewis Carroll parodied The Star in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, where the Hatter sings 'Twinkle, twinkle, little bat'.
A French tune
The poem is sung to the melody of a French song, Ah! vous dirai-je, maman, on which Mozart wrote a set of piano variations.
Frequently asked questions
Who wrote Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star?
Jane Taylor, as the poem The Star, published in Rhymes for the Nursery in 1806.
Who was Ann Taylor?
Jane's elder sister and co-author, later Ann Taylor Gilbert.
What tune is it sung to?
The French melody Ah! vous dirai-je, maman, also used for the alphabet song.