Jane Turpin


Jane Turpin is a fictional girl character, created by Evadne Price. Most of these stories were published in the Novel magazine and later compiled in a book form, in the period 1928 to 1947 (roughly the end of World War II). Jane is often referred to as the "female William", a reference to the Just William stories of Richmal Crompton which were very popular at the time.

Jane was depicted as a young child with angelic looks and golden curls, whose looks often belied her intent. Jane was depicted to be of a tomboyish nature, rebelling against authority, and the books usually used situation comedy to generate humour. Jane uses a distinctive lingo. Among her trademark distinctive speech is the substitution of the word "terrible" by the distorted form "terrable".

Family

Jane's family was created by Evadne Price to contain five members - Jane's father, mother, elder sister, Jane herself and baby Henry. Jane's father and mother are usually referred to in the books as "Mr. Turpin" and "Mrs. Turpin", although it is revealed in later books that their names are Henry and Marcia respectively. Jane's elder sister Marjorie ("Marge" to Jane) was a young woman, and hence interested in boys - a fact often exploited to generate situation comedy. Her exact age has never been stated, but since she doesn't seem to go to school like Jane, it can be assumed that she is at least eighteen and possibly older (early twenties perhaps). "Baby" Henry appears later on and was once kidnapped by Jane, Pug and Chaw. Aunts and great-aunts (like Great-Aunt Catherine), usually rather formidable characters, are depicted in the books to have regularly visited the Turpin household. Jane lives under threat of being sent to be "moulded" by her maternal grandparents.

Constants and recurring characters

Jane is shown to live in the suburb of Little Duppery, a small, well-knit suburban community. The time setting of the Jane books are the times of authorship. Primary recurring characters in the Jane books are:

Parallels to William Brown

Price did not take kindly to Jane stories being referred to as a copy of the William series. She went on record saying she "had never heard of William", even though William stories were regularly advertised on Jane book dust jackets. The famous illustrator Thomas Henry (Thomas Henry Fisher), who illustrated both Jane and William books, even signed the illustrations for the Jane books as "Marriott" so as to distinguish between the two series. Among parallels in the two series :

One significant difference in the two series is the absence of an analogue (in the Jane stories) to "The Outlaws" (in the William stories). While Jane has two close friends in Pug Washington and Chaw Smith, she does not command the kind of fidelity that William Brown commanded over the members of his gang - "The Outlaws". Thus, Jane tends to have more solitary adventures compared to William. Jane also does not have a pet in the beginning, unlike William - who had a pet dog Jumble, and was often shown keeping hamsters and white mice as pets (references are made to the cat Toothache which is referred to as Jane's, and Jane does manage to get her dog Popeye in the earlier books in the series).

Book illustrations

Three illustrators primarily illustrated the Jane books - for each of the publishing houses which published the Jane stories (John Hamilton, Newnes, and Robert Hale). Thomas Henry, the first illustrator of the William books, was the illustrator for Newnes, but did not depict Jane as the angelic girl with golden curls. The enduring image of Jane was due to the illustration of Frank R. Grey, who was with the publishing house of Robert Hale. It is worth noting that, even with the handover of Jane copyrights from publishing house to publishing house, the copyrights of the illustrations were not transferred. The first Jane book has thus been illustrated from scratch three times, and the second and third Jane books have been illustrated from scratch twice.

Complete Bibliography of the Jane series

Published by John Hamilton:

Published by Newnes:

Published by Robert Hale:

Published by Macmillan Publishers:

References

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