“““TTTyyyrrraaannnnnnyyy ooofff ttthhheee cccooonnnttteeemmmpppooorrraaarrryyy &&& llliiitteeerrraaarrryyy rrreeeddduuunnndddaaannncccyyy::: TTThhheee cccaaassseee ooofff RRReeegggiiinnnaaa MMMaaarrriiiaaa RRRoooccchhheee”””

“I’m fallin through the years As each dream it disappears When the night is full of tears I’ll be holdin on Now this life is etched in black But I won’t be lookin back The rain washed out the tracks I’ll never find again I’m still reaching for the light I’m still wearin out the night And you know I’ll be alright I’ll be holdin on.” [Gregg Allman]1

The Value and importance of heritage Delineation and definition of who and what we are requires contextualisation and this is best done through exploration and study of our heritage. Great art provides not just a reflection of society, it offers us a distillation and insight into times events and people. Joyce has suggested that if Dublin was destroyed it could be recreated from his seminal descriptions in Ulysses. Insights should have validity beyond the time in which the work was written and placed. All great art has a universality of appeal; the work of Michelangelo, Shakespeare and Bach transcends its physical and temporal dimension – it can as Joyce has suggested serve as an epiphany of the artistic experience portrayed. It can, perhaps more accurately, serve as an episteme for the period in which the work was executed. Placed against such a standard only a fraction of output over time can be considered great. But there are also standards by which a work can be considered to have Regional National and International importance. In preparing this paper the focus is on Literature and the essential related task of Reading as central precepts in the examination of the importance of the work of Regina Maria Roche. Preoccupation with the contemporary together with an allied, askance and infuriating tendency to view the past, even the relatively recent past, through modern glasses has all too frequently reduced history and historiography to comic-book quality. Good literature need not be complex nor labyrinthine but over time layers which were apparent to the contemporary reader can become less clear and necessitate guided assistance. However, these depths of meaning were present to begin with:

“Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressing gown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him by the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned: Intribo ad altere Dei, Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called up coarsely: Come up, Kinch, Come up, you fearful Jesuit.”2

This extract is from the very first page of Ulysses and is absolutely critical in establishing the nature of the work. Juxtaposing the act of shaving with cut-throat razor, brush, and bowl with a quotation from the introductory to the Latin Mass wherein the chalice was brought to the altar and adding a description of Buck Mulligan dressed in “vestment” like attire not only prepares the reader for the importance of ritual throughout the book but also echoes Joyce’s scholastic preoccupations3 and suggests the need for knowledge of Homer’s text. A recent Easons survey of “Favourite 50 books since 2000” indicates the fleeting and ephemeral nature of public taste. The top 104 titles chosen features no less than seven titles which have movie tie-ins; another is related to one of these seven and finally The Road by Cormac McCarthy in addition to having a movie tie- in won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for fiction and the 2006 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction and was an inevitable entry.

1 Allman, Gregg I’ll be holdin’ on [from the soundtrack of the film Black Rain, 1989] 2 Joyce, James Ulysses U.K.: Penguin Books, 1969 pg. 9 3 See the vivid and exhaustive explorations of scholastic philosophy in Stephen Hero Joyce’s precursor to Portrait of the Artist as a young man. 4 The Boy in the striped pyjamas; The Time traveller’s wife; The lovely bones; The girl with the dragon tattoo; The curious incident of the dog in the night-time; The kite runner; The book thief; A thousand splendid suns; The Road; Atonement. The Oprah Winfrey Book Club is one of the best known “Reading Clubs” in the world. Between 1996 and 2009 some 67 titles have been featured. Almost all are current titles but there are a few notable exceptions including work by William Faulkner. However, the most notable and only classic featured is Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina which was chosen in 2004. On the announcement of its selection the novel immediately went to Number 1 in the New York Bestseller list, this occurred even before discussion had taken place, and the book was subsequently named in the top 105 books chosen by American Writers. What this confirms is the absolute ability and power of the media to determine consumption and taste. Tramore Reading Group is one of the most successful such Irish groups. Since 2002 it has featured and studied some 131 critically acclaimed and popular International and Irish titles. While Dubliners and Tarry Flynn were read, no “classic title;” either Irish or International features. The Leaving Certificate English Course is, for most students, their final formal exploration of our literary heritage. The current curriculum has as main texts nine works. Six of these were written after 1900; the 17th century is represented by Shakespeare’s Hamlet and the 19th Century is represented by Ibsen’s A Doll’s house and Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. Irish Literature is represented by two plays and two novels, all are relatively contemporary.

Regina Maria Roche & Literary Tradition The Gothic Revival was a key cultural movement during the second half of the 18th and early part of the 19th Centuries. The impact of the movement was most obviously manifested in the field of architecture; in the field of art, (most powerfully by the work of Henry Fuseli [his painting The Nightmare6 could almost be interpreted as a microcosm of the entire movement]) and in the myriad of Gothic Fiction titles published throughout the period. Gothic fiction is today one of the most popular forms of the novel and the characters Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Frankenstein and Dracula are extraordinarily well known. However, few know that the genre originated in the 18th Century and even fewer are aware that gothic fiction was “the most popular literature in Britain during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries” or that these novels “effected a revolution in popular taste.” Gothic novels “appeared at the rate of more than a dozen every year from 1794 through 1797, and increased to nearly two dozen per year for 1798 through 1810…”7 According to McCormack the gothic novel is not easily defined, “but the sublime and asymmetrical character of gothic architecture, transformed into verbal intricacy, convoluted plot, emotional intensity – and all this overlaid with implications of supernatural agency – lies behind the literary experiment.”8 Perhaps the most obvious thematic preoccupations in gothic fiction can be noted as:

™ Aesthetics of the sublime9 ™ Religion and the supernatural ™ Influence of ancient romance ™ Discourse of Enlightenment reason versus Romantic imagination

5 The list is: 1 Anna Karenina by Tolstoy; 2 Madame Bovary by Flaubert; 3 War and Peace by Tolstoy; 4 Lolita by Nabokov; 5 The adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Twain; 6 Hamlet by Shakespeare; 7 The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald; 8 In search of lost time by Proust; 9 The stories of Anton Chekhov; 10 Middlemarch by George Eliot. [The Top ten: writers pick their favourite books edited by J. Peder Zane U.S. W.W. Norton & Co., 2007] 6 The Nightmare is a 1781 oil painting by Henry Fuseli (1741–1825) which is currently held in the United States. Since its creation, it has remained Fuseli's best-known work. With its first exhibition in 1782 at the Royal Academy of London, the image became famous; an engraved version was widely distributed and the painting was parodied in political satire. Due to its fame, Fuseli painted at least three other versions of the painting. Interpretations of The Nightmare have varied widely. The canvas seems to portray simultaneously a dreaming woman and the content of her nightmare. The incubus and the horse's head refer to contemporary belief and folklore about nightmares, but have been ascribed more specific meanings by some theorists. Contemporary critics were taken aback by the overt sexuality of the painting, which has since been interpreted by some scholars as anticipating Freudian ideas about the subconscious. 7 Norton, Rictor (ed.) Gothic Readings: The first wave, 1764-1840 U.K.: Leicester University Press, 2000 xiii, 369p. pg. viii 8 McCormack, W.J. Irish Gothic and after, 1820-1945 [in The Field day Anthology of Irish Writing Vol. II pgs. 831- 833. Ireland: Field Day Publications, 1991] pg. 831 9 Central to this is the exploration of the Sublime by Burke wherein his thesis is that the “Beautiful, is what is well-formed and aesthetically pleasing, whereas the Sublime is what has the power to compel and destroy us. The preference for the Sublime over the Beautiful was to mark the transition from the Neoclassical to the Romantic era.” See: Burke, Edmund A philosophical enquiry into the Origin of our ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. (1757) ™ Genre’s conventions or ‘hobgoblin machinery – e.g. vampires, nuns, mystic forests ruins etc.

The social vulnerability of women was a theme increasingly found in the genre as more and more new titles transferred their settings from medieval and mainland Europe to England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. This transfer of settings may have been partially precipitated by the inaccessibility of Europe due to the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. In the new literary landscapes the genre conscious of the relative safety of women from “real danger” allied to the fact that the largest number of authors and readers were women, who had a critical awareness of their economic dependency and “powerlessness,” made imaginary danger a favoured theme. In Northanger Abbey Austen graphically presents this theme in farcical terms as Henry Tilney teased Catherine Morland:

“Nothing further to alarm perhaps may occur the first night. After surmounting your unconquerable horror of the bed, you will retire to rest, and get a few hours' unquiet slumber. But on the second, or at farthest the third night after your arrival, you will probably have a violent storm.”10

Coral Ann Howells indicates the much more serious side of this thematic preoccupation: “the dread of sex runs right through gothic fictions and is basic to many of its conventions of anxiety and terror.”11 While modern critical thinking tends to limit the genre at this time “to a set of high reaching achievements: Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764), Ann Radcliffe’s The Italian; or, The Confessions of the Black Penitents (1797), Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818) and Charles Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer…,”12 it should be noted that Regina Mara Roche and “Radcliffe ‘were the rival female novelists of the latter part of the eighteenth and commencement of the nineteenth century’.”13 The genre which frequently exposed the corruption of authority was considered a “subversive force” and in consequence,

“Gothic novels were politically censured as ‘the terrorist system of writing,’ and their authors denounced as Jacobins set on destroying England.”14

Irish Gothic fiction holds a unique place in the development of the genre and as Siobhán Kilfeather has stated:

“the eighteenth-century Irish gothic has been most understood in so far as it has been perceived as a deviation from an English genre, while critical attention to the eighteenth-century female gothic fiction has been so dominated by readings of Ann Radcliffe’s Italian and French settings have been defined as almost essential to the genre’, and further that such a focus has overlooked the work of her contemporary Regina Maria Roche…”15

The nature and importance of the Irish Gothic tradition has been set out by Jarlath Killeen in his seminal study16 which traces its origins back to the events of 1641 in Ireland. He states that The Irish Rebellion written by Sir John Temple is,

“…the founding text of what has been baldly termed ‘Anglo-Irish Literature,’ a book read and re- read by generations of Anglicans, and whose influence on the textual traditions which arose afterwards is difficult to underestimate. This book inscribes violence into the very notion of what it means to be an Anglican in Ireland, and violence thus became part of the fabric of Anglican identity.”17

10 Austen, Jane Northanger Abbey U.K.: Alfred K. Knopf, 1991 xxxviii, 241p pg 148 11 Howells, Coral Ann Love, mystery and misery: feeling in Gothic Fiction U.K.: Athlone Press, 1978 vii, 199p pg. 13 12 The Gothic canon [online article] Zittaw Press 13 Mandal, Anthony Revising the Radcliffean model: Regina Maria Roche’s Clermont and Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey Cardiff Corvey: Reading the Romantic Text [Archived Articles Issue 3, No.3] pg. 1 14 Norton, Rictor (ed.) Gothic Readings: The first wave, 1764-1840 U.K.: Leicester University Press, 2000 xiii, 369p. pg. xi 15 Kilfeather, Siobhán ‘Origins of the Irish female Gothic’ in Bullán I, 2 (Autumn 1994) pp. 34-46 16 Killeen, Jarlath Gothic Ireland: Horror and the Irish Anglican Imagination in the long Eighteenth Century Ireland: Four Courts Press, 2005 240p pg.12 17 Killeen, Jarlath Gothic Ireland: Horror and the Irish Anglican Imagination in the long Eighteenth Century Ireland: Four Courts Press, 2005 240p pg.12 and he further emphasises that the “Gothic is the form on which articulations of Anglican identity began to depend towards the end of the eighteenth century.”18 That this text went through went through 10 editions between 1646 and 1812 reinforces his interpretation. Killeen traces this tradition through “The case of Ireland,19 King’s State of the Protestants of Ireland,20 Swift’s Modest Proposal21 and the work of Edmund Burke, through to the fiction of Regina Maria Roche. He suggests that

“as Irish Anglican unity was breaking down, the Gothic novel sought to restore it; as terror struck through agrarian secret societies, ‘terror’ novelists sought to channel the anxieties around such violence into a cultural surrogate which solved the violence vicariously. And, in The Children of the Abbey, we find precisely the kind of political transformations of death that were being interrogated by the antiquarian investigations of Anglican gentlemen.”22

Killeen forcefully presents the character of Amanda in The Children of the Abbey as “a mediator between the cultures of conservative Anglicanism and Catholicism that were clashing so frequently in Ireland in this period.”23 He further states that “Amanda stands as a repository of cultural memory. Through her the Catholic Gothic past finds a place in a modern Anglican cosmopolitanism.”24 This interpretation of the work of Roche greatly enhances her reputation and makes a strong case for deeper study. In a later segment of his book, another Waterford author, Richard Musgrave of Tooreen, through his most important description of 1798 in Memoirs of the different Rebellions in Ireland25 is granted an important place in the evolution of the gothic tradition. The concluding section of the work sets out the position of Maria Edgeworth. However, Killeen’s book could so easily have continued its thematic exploration through the work of Sheridan le Fanu 1814-1873 and on to Bram Stoker. I would also suggest that the work of Molly Keane, particularly her later fiction such as Time after Time and Loving and Giving has an absolute infusion of the gothic, predominantly in the use of the physical disintegration of the Big House as a metaphor for the end of a civilization. General Fiction Output. In exploring the work of Roche we should recognize that the output of new fiction titles in England and Ireland was extraordinarily limited at this time. In addition by the 1820’s there was a significant increase in output of fiction with an Irish theme or setting, but by this time output “came to be dominated by male authors…”26 and “Ireland became something of a ‘fashionable’ topic for fiction after the success of The Wild Irish girl’”27 and Lady Caroline Lamb’s Glenarvon.28 The largest output of Irish related items was 10 titles in 1829; 52 were published between 1820 and 1829, 19 between 1800 and 1809 and finally 43 between 1810 and 19. This output correlates directly with the general production of fiction. In 1818 novels representing Ireland accounted for over 14% of the total

18 Killeen, Jarlath Gothic Ireland: Horror and the Irish Anglican Imagination in the long Eighteenth Century Ireland: Four Courts Press, 2005 240p pg.13 19 Molyneux, William, 1656-1698 The case of Ireland’s being bound by Acts of Parliament in England stated Dublin, 1706 20 King, William, 1650-1729 The State of the Protestants in Ireland under the later King James’s Government in which their carriage towards him is justified, and the absolute necessity of their endeavouring to be freed from his government, and of submitting to their present Majesties is demonstrated. London: Robert Clavell, at the Peacock at the West End of St. Paul’s, 1691 21 Swift, Jonathan, 1667-1745 A modest proposal for preventing the children of poor people from becoming a burthen to their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the publick Dublin: S. Harding, 1729 22 Killeen, Jarlath Gothic Ireland: Horror and the Irish Anglican Imagination in the long Eighteenth Century Ireland: Four Courts Press, 2005 240p pg.183 23 Killeen, Jarlath Gothic Ireland: Horror and the Irish Anglican Imagination in the long Eighteenth Century Ireland: Four Courts Press, 2005 240p pg. 186 24 Killeen, Jarlath Gothic Ireland: Horror and the Irish Anglican Imagination in the long Eighteenth Century Ireland: Four Courts Press, 2005 240p pg.186 25 Musgrave, Richard, 1757-1818 Memoirs of the different Rebellions in Ireland from the arrival of the English: also a particular detail of that which broke out on the 23rd May, 1798 compiled from original affidavits and other authentic documents Dublin, Printed by Robert Marchbank for John Milliken and John Stockdale, 1801 26 Belanger, Jacqueline Some preliminary remarks on the production and reception of fiction relating to Ireland, 1800- 1829 [Corvey online article] 27 Belanger, Jacqueline Some preliminary remarks on the production and reception of fiction relating to Ireland, 1800- 1829 [Corvey online article] Morgan, Sydney Lady, 1783-1859 The wild Irish girl: A national tale. London: Richard Phillips, 1806 3Vol. 28 Lamb, Lady Caroline, 1785-1828 Glenarvon: A novel U.K. 1816 3vols. In the British library catalogue there are 4 separate editions showing for the year 1816. number of novels published that year while “up to 1808, only seven titles had appeared that were concerned with Ireland…”29

Family background The Dalton family arrived in Ireland as part of the Norman invasion force. They settled in several parts of the country including Westmeath, Waterford and Kilkenny. The ancestry and place of birth of Captain Blundell Dalton is unknown at this time but it appears likely that he was born in Waterford or South Kilkenny. He served with the King’s 40th Regiment of Foot and his Commission in this regiment is apt as that Regiment was created from forces based in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland30 which had strong links with Waterford. Dalton’s posting in Canada is confirmed in a muster list of October 2nd 1760 in Quebec. It would appear likely that Dalton returned to Ireland with his regiment which arrived back in 1765. He married on the 20th of March 1767 Mary Ann Lambe31. Dr Fell is listed as the officiating cleric and her father Joseph Lambe was described as a Freeman of the City of Waterford. The baptism of their daughter, Regina Maria, is recorded on the 5th of August 1769 at Holy Trinity Church with Mr. Frankfort officiating. Allowing for a period of delay prior to the baptism it appears almost certain that she was born in 1769 and not in 176432 as is universally noted in biographical notes. Captain Blundell Dalton applied to become a Freeman of the City of Waterford and was admitted to this honour on the 1st of January 1770. On that same day Edmond Dalton33 was also admitted and while this may be coincidental it would appear possible that there was some family connection between the tow men. While biographical notes state that Regina was raised in Dublin it would appear that her father maintained strong links with Waterford and it is possible that residency in Dublin was due to a military posting. Regina Maria Roche married Ambrose Roche at Rathkyran near Mooncoin, County Kilkenny in 1792 and her father is then described as “the late.” Ambrose Roche or Roch was the son of William and Mary Roch of Youghal34 and was descended from a renowned Waterford Family. A brief extract of the family tree is appended to this essay. His grandfather, James, served as a Colonel in the Army of King William and distinguished himself at the siege of Derry becoming noted as the “Swimmer.”35 Sampson Towgood Roch the older brother of Ambrose was born deaf and dumb in 1759 but still became one of the most renowned Miniature Painters of the 19th Century.36 By 1779 Sampson was living in Dublin and an advertisement seeking commissions indicates that he was resident at 13 Capel Street. This advertisement appeared on December 18th 1781. By 1786 Sampson was living in Cork when he married his cousin Melian Roch. She was in her late 30s being “at least six years older”37 than Sampson. He returned to Dublin and then moved to Bath. He eventually returned to Waterford where he lived at his nephew’s house at Woodbine Hill. Melian died on the 21st September 1837 and Sampson on the 20th of February 1847. “He was buried in the family vault in the church in Ardmore.”38 In an interesting study of Sampson Towgood Paul Caffrey, quoting from Jane Austen: A collection of critical Essays has drawn a singularly important connection which can link the work of Roch and the other Miniaturists with that of the contemporary novelists including Regina Maria Roche:

29 Belanger, Jacqueline Some preliminary remarks on the production and reception of fiction relating to Ireland, 1800- 1829 [Corvey online article] 30 In 1717 “the independent companies of soldiers stationed in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland were merged by Nova Scotia’s Governor Richard Phillips to create Phillips’ Regiment in 1750. Later, during the period of Colonel Edward Cornwallis’s Command “by Royal Warrant of 1st July Cornwallis’ Regiment was given the numerical distinction of the 40th Regiment of Foot. It served throughout the Anglo-French Canadian wars and subsequently against the French in the Caribbean. It was posted to Ireland in 1764 arriving there in 1765 31 Waterford Church of Ireland Marriage Register 1707-1712 pg 354 32 Waterford Church of Ireland Baptismal Register 1707-1812 pg. 363 33 Waterford City Freeman List, 1700-2000 34 Caffrey, Paul E.M. Sampson Towgood Roch, Miniaturist [In: The Irish Art Review: Yearbook 1986] pgs. 14-20 35 “…one Roch, from Major-General Kirk who got to the Water-side over against us and then swam across the river; he gave us an account of the Sips, Men provisions…” [Walker, George, 1680-1690 A True account of the siege of Londonderry U.K.: R Clavel & R. Simpson, 1689 59p] “Roch was now asked by the citizens to return to the Fleet to tell Kirke that they had only four days’ food left…” [Macrory, Patrick Arthur, 1911 The siege of Derry U.K. Hodder & Stoughton, 1980 384p] pg. 270 36 It seems almost inconceivable that Sampson would not have executed a portrait of his sister-in-law who was one of his most famous “acquaintances.” However, if he did so either the piece has not survived or is to date unidentified. 37 Roch-Perks, Pamela & Mary Sampson Towgood Roch Ardmore Journal No. 4 1987 38 Roch-Perks, Pamela & Mary Sampson Towgood Roch Ardmore Journal No. 4 1987

“…Jane Austen herself overtly compared her achievement as a novelist to that of the miniaturist, when she referred in a celebrated letter to ‘the little bit (two inches wide) of ivory on which I work with so fine a brush as produces little effect after much labour.”39

Roch painted many family portraits including one of his brother Ambrose and it seems virtually inconceivable that he would not have executed a likeness of his famous sister-in-law. However if he did produce a portrait, then the work is either unknown or no longer extant. Regina Maria Roche was financially unlucky in her life as her father’s estate was mismanaged by an unscrupulous solicitor called Boswell and laid in Chancery for over 10 years. Her husband also faced considerable financial difficulties and was bankrupted. Ambrose died in 1829 and Regina returned to Waterford. She lived on the Mall until her death which is recorded as occurring on the 18th of March 184540. Her funeral took place in St. Patrick’s Church of Ireland, Waterford.

Life and output The novels of Regina Maria Roche were published over a considerable period of five decades. The following is a bibliographical listing:

™ The Vicar of Lansdowne: or, Country quarters: a Tale London: Printed for the Author, 1789 ™ The Maid of the Hamlet: A tale London: Printed for H. Long, 1793 ™ The Children of the Abbey London: Minerva Press, 1796 ™ Clermont: A tale London: Minerva Press, 1798 ™ The Nocturnal visit: A tale London: Minerva Press, 1800 ™ Alvondown Vicarage. Minerva Press, 1807 ™ The Discarded Son: or, Haunt of the Banditti, a tale London: Minerva Press, 1807 ™ The houses of Osma and Almeria: or Convent of St. Ildefonso, A tale London: Minerva Press, 1810 ™ The monastery of St. Colomb; or, The Atonement, A tale. London: Minerva Press, 1813 ™ Trecothick Bower; or the Lady of the West Country. A tale London, Minerva Press, 1814 ™ The Munster cottage boy: A tale London: Minerva Press, 1820 ™ Bridal of Dunamore; and Lost and won: Two tales London: Minerva Press, 1823 ™ The tradition of the Castle; or scenes in the Emerald Isle London: Minerva Press, 1824 ™ The castle chapel: A romantic tale London: Minerva Press, 1825 ™ Contrast London: Minerva Press, 1828 ™ The Nun’s picture: A tale London: Minerva Press, 1834

Natalie Schroeder has stated that “Roche’s novels span three literary periods: the late eighteenth century; the Romantic period; and the beginning of the Victorian age”41 and, while the work of Roche undoubtedly reflects the literary conventions of the movements associated with these periods, it is equally valid to analyse the work of Roche in line with her personal history. The first period of Roche’s career concluded with her departure to England which had undoubtedly occurred by 1800. Prior to that date The Vicar of Lansdowne, or country Quarters and The Maid of the Hamlet had been published under her maiden name and according to Regina “at so early a period that those not acquainted with my dear father ascribed (them) to him.”42 She had lost her father, married and published her most important novels: The Children of the Abbey and Clermont. Her success in England was immediate and even in 1789, the year of the French Revolution, a first edition of The Vicar of Lansdowne, in French, was published in Paris. Her final novel in this phase was The Nocturnal visit which appeared in 1800. During the period from 1800 and 1807 Roche published no new titles. While this inactivity has been attributed to financial difficulties occasioned by the loss of her father’s property and possible difficulties in her husband’s financial affairs this appears difficult to understand or accept as Roche, as an established and singularly successful author, would have received significant income from her writing. To bolster her income she sought and was granted support by The Royal Literary Fund.43

39 Caffrey, Paul E.M. Sampson Towgood Roch, Miniaturist [In: The Irish Art Review: Yearbook 1986] pgs. 14-20 [Watt, Ian ed. Jane Austen: A collection of critical Essays U.S.: Prentice-Hall Inc, 1963vi, 184p pg. 2 40 Waterford Church of Ireland Death Register 1812-1845 pg. 109 41 Schroeder, Natalie The nun’s picture: Religion and the sensibility romance of the 1830’s [in] The South Central Bulletin Vol 40 No. 4 Winter 1980 pgs. 163-165 42 Regina made this point in her application for relief from the Royal Literary Fund. 43 The Royal Literary Fund is a British benevolent fund for professional published authors in financial difficulties. The RLF has been continuously helping authors since it was set up in 1790. It is funded by bequests and donations from writers who wish to help other writers. Its committee members come from Between 1807 and 1814 she produced a further five novels which included, in 1807, Alvondown Vicarage. This novel was published by the Minerva Press without the name of Roche on its title page. It was lost for many years but is available again. Why this title did not carry the name of Roche is difficult to comprehend unless it may have been due to stylistic variance from her earlier work. The Monastery of St. Columb published in 1814 “…is set in Ireland, which is often an idealized backdrop for the love story. But Roche also indicates a less romantic side of Ireland that hints of her interest in the problems of her native country that would occupy her in the next stage of her writing career.”44 Between 1814 and 1820 there is a further hiatus in the career of Roche which requires further research to comprehend. The five novels published in the 1820s are based in Ireland or have Irish themes and marks a literary move to the “regional novel” in her work. The last of these novels, Contrast was produced according to her preface during “long nights of sickness and privation,” but this comment may refer to the illness of her husband who died in 1829 leaving her “destitute and broken-hearted” She retired to Waterford in 1829 and her last novel The Nun’s picture was published in 1834. It has an early Victorian style and “emphasises the importance of religion as a means of coping with contemporary society.” According to Schroeder it,

“is a kind of valedictory novel, and in some respects it seems the most revealingly personal of any that she wrote…she returned to a story with English characters and English settings, highly reminiscent of the Children of the Abbey and Clermont, but with a difference.”45

Regina Maria Roche died in 1845 and an obituary was carried in The Gentleman’s Magazine July 1845/86 wherein she was described as,

“a distinguished writer (who) had retired from the world and the world had forgotten her. But many young hearts, now old must remember the effect upon them of her graceful and touching compositions.”46

Specific Studies Clermont: This title was published in 1798 and is today Roche’s most recognised novel. This recognition is based largely on a central reference in Northanger Abbey:

“‘But, my dearest Catherine, what have you been doing with yourself all this morning? Have you gone on with Udolpho?’ ‘Yes, I have been reading it ever since I woke; and I am got to the black veil’ ….. ‘Dear creature! How much I am obliged to you; and when you have finished Udolpho, we will read the Italian together; and I have made a list of ten or twelve more of the same kind for you.’ ‘Have you indeed! How glad I am! What are they all?’ ‘I will read you their names directly; here they are in my pocket book. Castle of Wolfenbach, Clermont, Mysterious Warnings, Necromancer of the Black Forest, Midnight Bell Orphan of the Rhine, and Horrid Mysteries. Those will last us some time.’ ‘Yes, pretty well; but are they all horrid, are you sure they are all horrid?’ ‘Yes, quite sure…’”47

It has been suggested that in her obvious parody of Gothic fiction in Northanger Abbey, Austen chose the “horrid novels” at random. But Emma Hodinott has forcefully stated that this was not name dropping by Austen but

“I believe that not only had she read the works of Regina Maria Roche, but was heavily influenced by their characters and plot motifs as well.”48

all walks of literary life and include novelists, biographers, poets, publishers, lawyers and agents. Help is given to writers in many different situations where personal or professional setbacks have resulted in loss of income. Pensions are considered for older writers who have seen their earnings decrease. Recipients of support have included Thomas Love Peacock, James Joyce, Joseph Conrad and D.H. Lawrence. 44 Schroeder, Natalie Introduction [in Clermont by Regina Roche U.S.: Valancourt Books 2006] pg. x 45 Schroeder, Natalie Introduction [in Clermont by Regina Roche U.S.: Valancourt Books 2006] pg. xii 46 Hodinott, Emma Regina Maria Roche: A biography [online article] The Corvey Project at Sheffield Hallam University 47 Austen, Jane Northanger Abbey U.K.: Alfred K. Knopf, 1991 xxxviii, 241p pgs 28-29 48 Hodinott, Emma The early Gothic Romances of Regina Maria Roche and the Jane Austen Connection [online article] The Corvey Project at Sheffield Hallam University pg. 1 and

“Jane Austen wields too much authorial control over her characters to allow such a list to be accidental. I would argue, therefore, that it is intended to be a deliberate and representational model…”49

Northanger Abbey undoubtedly highlights the relationship that existed in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries between women and the novel. The market for fiction at this time was largely dominated by women. The extent of this dominance is well illustrated by the career of William Lane. Lane established a circulating library in Whitechapel50 in 1763. So successful did this venture become that in 1790 Lane founded the Minerva Press and “over next fifteen years, Lane dominated the novel publishing industry and made a fortune.”51 Through the 1790s the Minerva Press published “about one-third of all the novels published in London”52 Six of the seven horrid novels were published by the Minerva Press and Regina Maria Roche was its most successful author. Novel writing at this time was also largely dominated by female authors53 and was in consequence somewhat denigrated as “lightweight and ephemeral.” Women themselves were conscious of this view and in her “A Vindication of the rights of Women”54 Mary Wollstonecraft recommends that women should read better than novels a statement which “is underwritten by a fear that ‘fondness for novels’ might pose a threat to women’s intellectual development.”55 While it has been suggested that novels were at this time treated as ephemera, this conclusion is challenged by the fact that in the library of the Earl of Granard “the family’s elaborate contemporary armorial bookplate has been placed into The Vicar of Lansdowne.”56 Because of their eminence of women in the production and consumption of fiction at this time:

“It is in the non-fiction works of Wakefield and the novels of the Minerva Press that we gain our best insight into contemporary womanhood…”57

Clermont is the most profoundly gothic novel written by Roche. It is linked closely to the work of Ann Radcliffe, by its publication date, its use of literary conventions and of course the references in Northanger Abbey. There are substantial differences in the styles of the two authors as Natalie Schroeder has pointed out:

“Unlike Radcliffe’s, Roche’s central concern in Clermont is neither the intrigue nor the didactic message. In manipulating the engines of terror and fear and in creating picturesque landscape, Roche is primarily interested in adding to the intensive emotional experience of her heroine and reader – rather in ‘expanding the soul’ or awakening ‘the ‘faculties to a high degree of life.’”58

These critical differences are further explored by Anthony Mandel who states that:

49 Hodinott, Emma The early Gothic Romances of Regina Maria Roche and the Jane Austen Connection [online article] The Corvey Project at Sheffield Hallam University pg. 5 50 Prior to 1700 there were no circulating libraries in London but during the century over 100 were established and by 1850 there were 500 51 Gertz, Stephen J. Reflections on the present condition of the female sex. [online article – The Fine Books blog] 52 Cole, Helen The Minerva Press and the illustration of the late eighteenth-century novel U.K: The Female Spectator Vol.13 No. I 53 Of the “horrid novels” listed by Austen three are written by women: Regina Maria Roche; Eliza Parsons and Eleanor Sleath. 54 Wollstonecraft, Mary, 1759-1797 A vindication of the rights of women: with strictures on political and moral subjects London: printed for J. Johnson, 1796 xix [1] 452p “Novels, music, poetry, and gallantry, all tend to make women the creatures of sensation, and their character is thus formed during the time they are acquiring accomplishments, the only improvement they are excited, by their station in society, to acquire. This overstretched sensibility naturally relaxes the other powers of the mind, and prevents intellect from attaining that sovereignty which it ought to attain to render a rational creature useful to others, and content with its own station: for the exercise of the understanding, as life advances, is the only method pointed out by nature to calm the passions.” [Chapter IV] 55 Stoddart, Helen Early female gothic: Zofloya and Manfroné; Or the one-handed monk [ 1809] [online article 56 Cole, Helen The Minerva Press and the illustration of the late eighteenth-century novel U.K.: The Female Spectator Vol.13 No. I 57 Gertz, Stephen J. Reflections on the present condition of the female sex. [online article – The Fine Books blog] 58Schroeder, Natalie Introduction [in Clermont by Regina Roche U.S.: Valancourt Books 2006] pg. xxii “Whereas Radcliffe’s Montoni is essentially a bandit whose evil is exaggerated by Emily’s fervid imagination, the D’Alemberts come closer to the horror-Gothic conception of villainy, as depicted in M.G. Lewis’s The Monk (1796) and Charles Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer (1820).”59

Mandel does not link these variations to an Irish source and indeed Schroeder suggests that the “Rochean Gothic is more akin to that of the German Schauerromane than to the more filmy effects of Radcliffean Romance.”60 However, to fully understand Clermont it should be studied in its Anglo-Irish context. It is particularly appropriate that the ITV production of Northanger Abbey which premiered on the 25th of March 2007 was partly shot in County Waterford, the birthplace of Roche, using Lismore Castle as the Abbey. The Children of the Abbey: This novel was published in 1796 and is the most important and most successful of Roche’s books. An Irish edition was first produced in 1796, a Cork one in 1798 and in 1835/6 a Belfast edition. The book “was an immediate best-seller, and became one of the most popular novels of the nineteenth century, going through at least 14 editions during her lifetime, and French and Spanish editions”61 and according to Schroeder sales of Children “even eclipsed that of Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho.”62 It went through 11 editions by 1832 and was never out of print during the 19th Century. The title and sub-title are revealing and important:

“The Children of the Abbey, An interesting novel, founded on facts; Description of the adventures and misfortunes of Oscar and Amanda Fitzalan, grandchildren of Earl Dunreath, who, by a forged will, were for many years deprived of their legal inheritance; with particulars of Lord Mortimer’s attachment to Amanda, and the many vexations and disappointments they met with through the villainy of Colonel Belgrave, who attempted to ruin her character and seduce her; and an account of the many stratagems he used, In all of which he was disappointed by her extraordinary resolution and virtue.”

Only one contemporary review that which was printed in the British Critic, 11, 1798-99 appears to have been published but the influence of the novel was very significant and Jane Austen again emerges as a key figure. She considered the book an “an accomplished novel” and refers to the novel in a critical passage in Emma when Harriet Smith speaking to Emma about Mary Martin says,

“But sometimes of an evening, before we went to cards, he would read something aloud out of the Elegant Extracts, very entertaining. And I know he has read the Vicar of Wakefield. He never read the Romance of the Forest, nor The Children of the Abbey. He had never heard of such books before I mentioned them, but he is determined to get them now as soon as ever he can."63

But, perhaps more crucially Austen chose to name one of her most important characters, Charles Bingley in Pride and Prejudice after Roche’s character. In this case not only does she chose that name but she “deemed Roche’s characterisation as worthy of imitation…”64 and there are clear similarities between both. The settings for Children of the Abbey are Devon, Ireland, London, Scotland and Wales and a sub-theme in the novel dealing with inheritance is worthy of note in the light of Roche’s own experience with her father’s estate as the novel “several times emphasises the crucial role of written texts as well as all-too-frail vessels bearing some ineffable value.”65 The influence of the novel on later Irish novels has been noted by W.J. McCormack who stated that it “gave a foretaste of the use to which later Anglo-Irish writers like Maturin and Le Fanu would put the

59 Mandal, Anthony Revising the Radcliffean model: Regina Maria Roche’s Clermont and Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey Cardiff Corvey: Reading the Romantic Text [Archived Articles Issue 3, No.3] pg. 5 It is worth noting that M.G. Lewis [1775-1818 produced his work in 1796 the same year as Children of the Abbey and Maturin [1782-1824] was born in Dublin of Huguenot stock. 60 Schroeder, Natalie Introduction [in Clermont by Regina Roche U.S.: Valancourt Books 2006] pg. xviii 61 Norton, Rictor (ed.) Gothic Readings: The first wave, 1764-1840 U.K.: Leicester University Press, 2000 xiii, 369p. 62 Schroeder, Natalie Introduction [in Clermont by Regina Roche U.S.: Valancourt Books 2006] pg. VII 63 Austen, Jane Emma U.K.: Wordsworth Editions Ltd., 2000 pg. 18 64 Hodinott, Emma The early Gothic Romances of Regina Maria Roche and the Jane Austen Connection [online article] The Corvey Project at Sheffield Hallam University pg. 4 65 McCormack, W.J. Irish Gothic and after, 1820-1945 [in The Field day Anthology of Irish Writing Vol. II pgs. 831-833. Ireland: Field Day Publications, 1991] pg. 832 Gothic.”66 In the Field Day Anthology we are given a further indication that the novel is by no means a superficial tome:

“It draws on Edmund Burke’s essay on the sublime; uses epigraphs from poets such as Thomson, associated with the discourses of sensibility….and is dense with Ossianic reference. Amanda’s mother is named Malvina and her brother Oscar after James MacPherson’s characters…”67

Assessment In the annals of Irish Fiction Maria Edgeworth, who was born at Black Bourton, Oxfordshire on the 1st of January 1767 and came to Ireland in 1773, has frequently been ascribed the position as the first major Irish female fiction author. Her first, and perhaps greatest, novel Castle Rackrent was published in 1800 and has been described as the “first historical novel.” This analysis does considerable disservice to the contribution of Regina Maria Roche. Roche had significant artistic longevity and her prolific output ranged in style from the gothic to the regional and finally the early Victorian. In the Gothic genre she enjoyed her greatest success and was the founding novelist of the Irish Gothic tradition. Her use of Irish settings in The Children of the Abbey was groundbreaking and both it and Clermont not only pre-date the work of Edgeworth but also that of Jane Austen. She has correctly been credited with “masterful handling of narration…”68 As a woman, her position in Irish and English society limited the avenues available for artistic success and despite this her success was enormous throughout her lifetime and beyond. That her death went virtually unnoticed and that today her work is largely unknown, the exact location of her residence on the Mall in Waterford, and the location of her grave in the city also unidentified, speaks volume for our appreciation of one of the most important artists born in County of Waterford and indeed in Ireland as a whole. Similar points could be made about many of our classical authors and there is certainly, I believe, a tyranny of the contemporary at play in her case.

WWÉÉÉÇÇttÄÄÄww UUÜÜÜttwwçç 3rd April 2010

66 McCormack, W.J. Irish Gothic and after, 1820-1945 [in The Field day Anthology of Irish Writing Vol. II pgs. 831-833. Ireland: Field Day Publications, 1991] 67 The Field day Anthology of Irish Writing Vol. II pgs. 831-833. Ireland: Field Day Publications, 1991] pg. 814 68 Hodinott, Emma The early Gothic Romances of Regina Maria Roche and the Jane Austen Connection [online article] The Corvey Project at Sheffield Hallam University pg. 9