Literary Sociability
Barker’s earliest work, Poetical Recreations (1688), can be viewed as a part of an ongoing social discourse. For example, one of the poems in this compilation is addressed to the local rector, George Hawen, to whom Barker expressed her gratitude for presenting her with two books, The Reasonableness of Christianity and The History of King Charles the First.
While the first part of this two-part compilation comprises Barker’s own poems addressed to her friends, the second part contains the poems written by Barker’s friends addressed to Barker herself. Described as written by "several Gentlemen of the Universities, and Others," the second part of Poetical Recreations has an intense aura of collegiality, with the contributors of the second part often identified as Barker’s friends from Cambridge or Oxford University. The publisher, Benjamin Crayale, also contributed twelve poems in Part Two and expressed his admiration for Barker’s literary taste.
Barker’s network of literary friendship nourished her earliest efforts as a poet. Unlike her later works, "Poetical Recreations" often conveys personal matters which show the sociability of a young female writer. Described on the title page as "Occasionally written by Mrs. Jane Barker," Part One of this compilation comprises more than fifty items, some of which were later copied into the Magdalen Manuscript. Compiled sometime after 1701, this manuscript contains Barker’s note expressing her concern that the selections from Poetical Recreations were published "without her consent" in 1688 and are "now corrected by her own hand." This brief note in the Magdalen Manuscript indicates that Barker may not have initially intended for the selections in Poetical Reactions to be read by the public. In order to make her verses more presentable for the public, she made a few changes before their release: she removed personal references as well as subjects involving private emotions, such as family sorrow, which she did not consider suitable reading for people other than her circle of literary friends.
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