- Jean Adam
Jean Adam (or Adams) (
April 30 1704 -April 3 1765 ) was a Scottishpoet . [ [http://oxforddnb.com/index/101000103/ Jean Adam : Oxford Biography Index entry ] ]Early years
Born in
Greenock into a maritime family, her most famous work (though the authorship was for some time in dispute) is "There's Nae Luck Aboot The Hoose," a tale of a sailor's wife and the safe return of her husband from the sea. It is reported thatRobert Burns remarked on its quality in 1771, some years after Adam's death.Adam had a limited education in reading, writing, and sewing. She first encountered poetry not at school but when she read extracts from Sir Philip Sidney's romance "The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia" (1590) whilst working in domestic service with the minister of West Kirk, Greenock. There she also became acquainted with John Milton’s work and his translations of the classics.
Writing career
She began to write in earnest and in 1734, one Mr Drummond, a collector of customs and excise, aided in the publication of a volume of her poems, "Miscellany poems", by subscription. The collection did not sell well and Adam's financial situation worsened after she used her savings to ship a substantial number of copies to
Boston ,USA , in an unsuccessful bid for success there.Adams worked at a day school for many years. She gave the school up after 1751 and turned to domestic labour for the rest of her life. Unable to recapture the fleeting success she had had, Jean Adams died penniless in
Glasgow 's Town’s Hospital, aworkhouse , on 3 April 1765, after it was reported that she had been wandering about in the streets.Her works
*"Miscellany poems. By Mrs Jane Adams in Crawfordsdyke" (Glasgow, 1734)
*"There's Nae Luck Aboot The Hoose" (song; attrib.)Resources
*"Adams, Jean." "The Feminist Companion to Literature in English". Virginia Blain et al., eds. New Haven and London: Yale UP, 1990. 7-8.
*Williamson, Karina. “ [http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.hil.unb.ca/view/article/103 Adam , Jean (1704–1765)] .” "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography". Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. 10 Jan. 2007.References
External links
* [http://oxforddnb.com/index/101000103/ Oxford biography]
ee also
*
List of early-modern women poets (UK)
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