JEWSBURY, GERALDINE ENDSOR (1812-1880), English writer, daughter of
Thomas Jewsbury, a Manchester merchant, was born in 1812 at Measham,
Derbyshire. Her first novel, _Zoe: the History of Two Lives_, was
published in 1845, and was followed by _The Half Sisters_ (1848),
_Marian Withers_ (1851), _Constance Herbert_ (1855), _The Sorrows of
Gentility_ (1856), _Right or Wrong_ (1859). In 1850 she was invited by
Charles Dickens to write for _Household Words_; for many years she was a
frequent contributor to the _Athenaeum_ and other journals and
magazines. It is, however, mainly on account of her friendship with
Thomas Carlyle and his wife that her name is remembered. Carlyle
described her, after their first meeting in 1841, as "one of the most
interesting young women I have seen for years; clear delicate sense and
courage looking out of her small sylph-like figure." From this time till
Mrs Carlyle's death in 1866, Geraldine Jewsbury was the most intimate of
her friends. The selections from Geraldine Jewsbury's letters to Jane
Welsh Carlyle (1892, ed. Mrs Alexander Ireland) prove how confidential
were the relations between the two women for a quarter of a century. In
1854 Miss Jewsbury removed from Manchester to London to be near her
friend. To her Carlyle turned for sympathy when his wife died; and at
his request she wrote down some "biographical anecdotes" of Mrs
Carlyle's childhood and early married life. Carlyle's comment was that
"few or none of these narratives are correct in details, but there is a
certain mythical truth in all or most of them;" and he added, "the
Geraldine accounts of her (Mrs Carlyle's) childhood are substantially
correct." He accepted them as the groundwork for his own essay on "Jane
Welsh Carlyle," with which they were therefore incorporated by Froude
when editing Carlyle's _Reminiscences_. Miss Jewsbury was consulted by
Froude when he was preparing Carlyle's biography, and her recollection
of her friend's confidences confirmed the suspicion that Carlyle had on
one occasion used physical violence towards his wife. Miss Jewsbury
further informed Froude that the secret of the domestic troubles of the
Carlyles lay in the fact that Carlyle had been "one of those persons who
ought never to have married," and that Mrs Carlyle had at one time
contemplated having her marriage legally annulled (see _My Relations
with Carlyle_, by James Anthony Froude, 1903). The endeavour has been
made to discredit Miss Jewsbury in relation to this matter, but there
seems to be no sufficient ground for doubting that she accurately
repeated what she had learnt from Mrs Carlyle's own lips. Miss Jewsbury
died in London on the 23rd of September 1880.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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