Jane Loudon (née Webb; 19 August 1800 – 13 July 1858), also known as Jane C. Loudon, or Mrs. Loudon in her publications, was an English writer and early pioneer of science fiction. She wrote before the term was coined, and was discussed for a century as a writer of Gothic fiction, fantasy or horror. She also created the first popular gardening manuals, as opposed to specialist horticultural works, reframing the art of gardening as fit for young women. She was married to the well-known horticulturalist John Claudius Loudon, and they wrote some books together, as well as her own very successful series. Loudon is famous for her gothic novel The Mummy! A Tale of the Twenty-Second Century (1827).
Early life
Jane Webb's year of birth is unclear. Most sources give it as 1807, but the Church of England Deaths and Burials, 1813-2003 gives her age at death as 57, which supports her birth date as 1800. She was born to Thomas Webb, an eminent lawyer from Edgbaston, Birmingham and his wife. (Sources vary on her place of birth: according to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB), she was born at Ritwell House, which is possibly the same as Kitwell House at Bartley Green). After the death of her mother in 1819, she travelled in Europe for a year with her father, learning several languages. On their return, his business faltered and his fortune was lost to excessive speculation. He sold the house in Edgbaston and moved to another of his properties, Kitwell House at Bartley Green, six miles away. He died penniless in 1824, when Jane Webb was seventeen.
