Jane Howard graduated in English from Somerville College, Oxford, and worked initially for Victor Gollancz, then an independent publisher, at the firm’s office in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden. Later she taught craft apprentices at the former London College of Furniture, which eventually morphed into the Sir John Cass School of Art, Architecture and Design. Her interests include Renaissance and Baroque music, and the literature of that period, in particular theories of melancholy.