Jane Colman Turell (1708–1735) was an 18th-century American colonial poet. A gifted young scholar, her father provided an unusually good education for a young woman of this period.^[1] She was the first of a number of prolific women poets whose works were published in the colonies.^[2] Born in Boston, she was the only daughter of Dr. Benjamin Colman, a clergyman and writer. Encouraged by her father to follow literary pursuits, she started writing poetry at the age of 11.^[3] At the age of 19, she married Rev. Ebenezer Turell of Medford, Massachusetts. A writer of "classic" poetry focused primarily on religion and family life, she modeled her life and writings after Elizabeth Singer Rowe.^[4] Turrell's contemporaries were Francis Knapp, Benjamin Colman, Roger Wolcott, Mather Byles, and Rev. John Adams.^[5]

Turell died at the age of 27. She wrote about her experience with childbirth, which included stillbirth, early death of her infants, and painful occurrences.^[1] Her letters, diary extracts, short religious essays and pious verse were collected in a pamphlet and published by her husband immediately after her death in 1735,^[6] as Reliquiate Turellae et Lachrymae Paternal,^[7] and reprinted in 1741 as Memoirs of the Life and Death of the Pious and Ingenious Mrs. Jane Turell.^[8]