Pfeiffer, Emily Jane (1827–1890)

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Pfeiffer, Emily Jane (1827–1890)

British poet and essayist. Born on November 26, 1827, in Oxfordshire, England; died in January 1890 in Putney, London, England; daughter of R. Davis (an army officer); married Jurgen Edward Pfeiffer (a banker), in 1853.

Published ten volumes of poetry and many essays on the condition of Victorian women.

Selected writings:

Valesneria (1857); Gerard's Monument and Other Poems (1873); Glan-Alarch: His Silence and Song (1877); Sonnets and Songs (1880); The Wynnes of Wynhavod (1881); Under the Aspens (1882); Flying Leaves from East and West (1885); Rhyme of the Lady of the Rock and How it Grew (1884); Women and Work (1887); Flowers of the Night (1889).

Emily Jane Pfeiffer lost the chance for a formal education when her father's bank failed and the family faced financial hardship. Still, with her father's encouragement she educated herself and developed an interest in both painting and poetry. Her husband, Jurgen Edward Pfeiffer, a German banker residing in London, also supported her in her initial publishing efforts. In 1857, she produced her first book of poetry, Valesneria; or A Midsummer's Night's Dream. The long poem Margaret; or The Motherless was published in 1861. She then produced no writing for the next 12 years, instead spending her time reading in an effort to further her education.

Between 1873 and 1884, Pfeiffer published a number of books of poetry, including Gerard's Monument and Other Poems (1873), Glan-Alarch: His Silence and Song (1877), Sonnets and Songs (1880), The Wynnes of Wynhavod (1881), Under the Aspens (1882), and The Rhyme of the Lady of the Rock and How It Grew (1884). After the death of George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans ) in 1880, she wrote "The Lost Light" in praise of Eliot and her work. Pfeiffer's final book of poems, Flowers of the Night (1889), was published just a year before her death. Some critics compared her poetry, which often used the sonnet form, to that of Elizabeth Barrett Browning .

Pfeiffer was also interested in chronicling the lives of women as she saw them. After taking a trip around the world, she wrote a travel book, Flying Leaves from East and West (1885), in which she recorded her impressions of how women lived in various countries she had visited. She was sympathetic to women's problems and wrote numerous essays about such subjects as dress reform, rape, education, sexuality, marriage, and women in the workplace. In Women and Work (1887), she decried the lack of employment opportunities available to women in Victorian culture. At her death in 1890, she left considerable money to establish an orphanage, a drama school, and a women's hall at University College, Cardiff, Wales.