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".

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.

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:

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 :

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