SOURCE: King, Kathryn R. and Medoff, Jeslyn. “Jane Barker and Her Life (1652-1732): The Documentary Record.” Eighteenth-Century Life 21, no. 3 (November 1997): 16-38.

In the following essay, King and Medoff offer an account of the life of Barker that contrasts with the biography that has been erroneously reconstructed from her fictional works.

Jane Barker's time has come. That this poet, novelist, lay physician, Catholic convert, exile, and Jacobite is an immensely intriguing figure has been an open secret among specialists for the past fifteen years. Now that much of her best work is finally available in modern editions, Barker's stock as a writer in the larger scholarly community is almost certain to rise. The 1996-97 academic year alone saw the publication of a paperback edition of three of her novels and a selection of her verse; the inclusion of her work in two important anthologies, one of which claimed for...