The daughter of Thomas and Anne Connock Barker, Jane Barker employed the pseudonyms Fidelia and Galesia in her novels, which have in recent times been discussed in critical studies of fiction and most of which have been republished in facsimile or new editions. But she was also a poet generally called "Mrs. Jane Barker," a title of respect ("Mistress"), for she was unmarried. In May 1652 Barker was born in Blatherwicke, Northamptonshire, to an Anglican and Royalist family, but she grew up in Wilsthorp, Lincolnshire. Her father provided some aristocratic associations, and her education was enhanced through her brother Edward, a student at St. John's College, Oxford, and Leyden. Both her father and brother dying in 1670, she and her mother moved to London, which proved a lonely place for her, if one can believe Galesia and her seemingly autobiographical novels. Galesia's thwarted love and acceptance of the single life...