Jane among the Godwins( 1798-1814)

Abstract Jane Clairmont, known to history as Claire Clairmont, makes her first appearance at the age of 3, apparently from nowhere. She believed that she was born on 27 April 1798. This, at any rate, is the birthday and age she set down several times in her voluminous journals. There is, however, no record of any church or Nonconformist baptism; and as to her place of birth, there is no evidence. She seems to have thought she had some connection with Switzerland, wrote to Byron of ‘Switzerland: the land of my ancestors’, though what she meant is not clear; equally vaguely, she thought she might have ‘Relations at Geneva’.Jane’s childhood was, in general, happy.