Anne Hampson (b. November 28) was a British writer of over 125 romance novels in Mills & Boon from 1969 to 1998. She published historical romance novels under the pseudonym Jane Wilby. Although she retired in 1998, in 2005 she published two romance and a crime novel. She has written an autobiography entitled Fate Was My Friend.
Hampson dreamed of teaching and writing when she was six, but due to the depression after World War II, she had to leave her studies at fourteen and begin making blouses for Marks & Spencer's. She left work when she married.
Later, when her marriage broke up, she had to return to work and lived in a tiny caravan. But, when Manchester University decided to trial older women she applied and graduated.
In 1973, she became a launch author for the new Harlequin Presents line of category romance novels. Harlequin Presents books were more sensual than the previous line, Harlequin Romance, under which she had been published. She was chosen to be a launch author because she, along with Violet Winspear and Anne Mather, were the most popular and prolific of Harlequin's authors.