Author: Taylor, Emily
Biography:
TAYLOR, Emily (1795-1872: ancestry.com)
Her parents, Samuel and Jane (Cowling) Taylor, owned a farm in Banham, Norfolk, where she was born; but her mother died shortly after her birth, leaving her to be brought up by her father, two aunts, and several siblings. (Her brother Edgar became a successful London lawyer and translated the tales of the Brothers Grimm [1824-6], with illustrations by Cruikshank.) Emily Taylor became partly deaf after a bout of scarlet fever when she was seven; nevertheless, after she moved with her father to nearby New Buckenham, she established a school which gained national renown for making singing a central part of the curriculum. As early as 1820 she entered on a long career as a provider of juvenile, educational, or religious literature, often illustrated, and often in association with the Quaker publishers Darton in London. After 1842 she lived in London with a widowed sister but continued to teach. She herself wrote fiction, poetry, history, and biography; she also edited and anthologized the works of others. Her hymns, generally anonymous contributions, were at first designed for Unitarian congregations; later in life she joined the Established Church. WorldCat identifies her most widely held works as Letters to a Child, on the Subject of Maritime Discovery (1820), The Boy and the Birds (1835), Lays for the Sabbath (1846), and Tales from the History of the Saxons (1861). She died at home in St. Pancras, London, on 11 Mar. 1872. A Sketch of Emily Taylor, by a Friend, published in the same year, provides valuable biographical information and pays tribute to her gift for friendship. ("Taylor, Edgar," ODNB 16 Nov. 2020; Darton; ancestry.com 16 Nov. 2020; A Sketch of Emily Taylor [1872])