Baptised Jane Gibson Chambers. Eldest daughter of the Edinburgh author and publisher Robert Chambers. In 1852 married Frederick Lehmann. Mrs. Lehmann's connection with H.W. would have been through the WilIses, her aunt Janet being Wills's wife. The Lehmanns did not become close friends of Dickens until about 1860.

"A Very Tight Little Island," assigned to Dixon and Mrs. Lehmann, deals with Heligoland. The article begins with mention of the strategic importance of the island and gives some account of its history, then turns to the suggestion that English vacationers spend their holidays there "for a change in the beaten routine of watering-places" and sketches the social life of "the Heligoland season". A possible reconstruction of the joint authorship may be that the H.W. office assigned Dixon to write the political and historical section of the article to serve as introduction to Mrs. Lehmann's account of the social life. Mrs. Lehmann was acquainted with Heligoland, as she was with various other Continental and English watering places. Her letters contain sprightly descriptions of life on the Isle of Wight, at Biarritz, and elsewhere. About the seaside town of St. Jean de Luz she had the same attitude as that implied about Heligoland in the H.W. article—that it deserved to be better known to seasonal visitors than it was. To make the town better known, she wrote in a letter to her husband, February 28 1867, "I have had a try at an article". Her letter writing, however, exhausted Mrs. Lehmann's time and energy; as a result, she confessed, "I am a mute inglorious authoress. Amen!" (Lehmann, comp. and ed., Memories of Half a Century, p. 194).

Author: Anne Lohrli; © University of Toronto Press, 1971.