Emily Jane Pfeiffer

Emily Jane Pfeiffer, née Davis, (26 November 1827 – 23 January 1890) was an English poet, and philanthropist.

Life

Following the financial collapse of her grandfather's bank in 1831, her family lacked the resources to send her to school, but her father, Thomas Richard Davis, encouraged her to paint and write poetry. In 1842, Pfeiffer published her first book, The holly branch, an album for 1843. In 1850, she married Jurgen Edward Pfeiffer, a tea merchant.^[1] Pfeiffer was a prolific writer, publishing several books and compilations of poems. Her 1876 collection, Poems, was a critical success; Flowers of the night, a collection of sonnets published in 1889, after the death of her husband, dealt with themes of grief and consolation as well as the disadvantageous legal position of women.^[2]

After reading Charles Darwin's Descent of Man (1871), Pfeiffer wrote to Darwin to question his description of sexual selection; she took issue with the idea that birds had sufficient aesthetic sophistication to select their partners based on beauty. Instead, Pfeiffer thought it plausible that birds selected partners that they found aesthetically fascinating or alluring.^[3] Darwin agreed that Pfeiffer's use of the term "fascination" was appropriate to describe the mechanism by which sexual selection functioned.^[4]

Pfeiffer left some of her property to her niece and sisters, but the bulk of it, in accordance with the wishes of her husband, who had left her all his wealth, went to promote women's education, and establish an orphanage for girls.^[5] The orphanage had already been built on their property at her death,^[6] but following a lawsuit against the estate, the property was broken up and sold in 1892, including "the Orphanage ... a brick-built cottage".^[7] Of the main bequest, £2000 was used to support the construction of Aberdare Hall, now part of Cardiff University.^[1]

References

1. Hinings, Jessica. "Pfeiffer, Emily Jane". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/22084. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
2. "Emily Jane Pfeiffer". Orlando: women's writings in the British Isles from the beginnings to the present. Retrieved 8 March 2013.
3. "Letter from Pfeiffer to Darwin, before 26 Apr 1871". Darwin Correspondence Project. Retrieved 8 March 2013.
4. "Letter from Darwin to Pfeiffer, 26 Apr 1871". Darwin Correspondence Project. Retrieved 8 March 2013.
5. "Emily Jane Pfeiffer: life screen". Orlando: women's writing in the British Isles from the beginnings to the present.
6. Japp, Alexander Hay (1907). "Emily Pfeiffer: Critical and Biographical Essay". Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century.
7. The London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 26277. p. 2197. April 12, 1892.

Sources

•  Garnett, Richard (1896). "Pfeiffer, Emily Jane". In Lee, Sidney. Dictionary of National Biography 45. London: Smith, Elder & Co.