Jane Barker

[9] As a young woman, Jane Barker was taught Latin, anatomy, and herbal medicine by her brother, Edward, who matriculated at St. John's College, Oxford in 1668 and earned his M.A.

[11] Indebted to her brother for providing her with the basis of her education, Jane mourned his death in 1675, shortly after he finished his time at Oxford.

[12] James II maintained court in Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, a castle lent to the Stuarts by Louis XIV from 1689 to 1704.

[15] Originally printed without the author's permission by Benjamin Crayle, the title page of Poetical Recreations boasted that poems within were "Occasionally written by Mrs. Jane Barker".

A note in what is now called the Magdalen Manuscript suggests that the publisher did not have Barker's permission to print the collection: it reads "now corrected by her own hand."

[16] Scholar Kathryn King finds evidence through marginal notations in the Magdalen Manuscript that Barker's works are autobiographical.

[19] Upon returning to England, Jane Barker gifted a copy of her A Collection of Poems Referring to the Times to the son of James II for his birthday.

[22] King suggests that the original edition of the novel in 1713 was not meant for publication because major revisions were made before it was reprinted, with a new title, in 1719.

[29] Jonathan Grieder states that formally the work is weak, but because it appeals to women during the early eighteenth century it can inform the reader about feminine interests during the time of its publication.

[30] In 1718, Barker published her translation of a French Catholic devotional manual, The Christian Pilgrimage, originally written by François Fénelon, the archbishop of Cambrai.

[32] Barker's translation of Fénelon's work offered a take on Catholicism that used the vocabulary of the Church of England; she removed extraneous Catholic representation from the original so as not to dissuade Protestant readership.

[38] A celibate woman, Barker belonged to the tradition of female martial valor and enjoyed her freedom from men in her own personal life.

[46] Depicted as an autobiographical author by Kathryn R. King, Jane Barker's works display a strong feminist bent, offering her readership information regarding single womanhood, female education and politics.