Jacqueline Belanger »

Jacqueline Belanger (BA Northwestern, MPhil Trinity College, Dublin, PhD Kent at Canterbury) is a Research Associate at the Centre of Editorial and Intertextual Research, Cardiff University. She is currently gathering and evaluating circulating-library and periodical materials as part of the second phase of a Database of English Fiction, 1800–29 project housed in the Centre. Her research interests include Irish literature, and literary reviews of the Romantic Period, and a proposal for a monograph study of the British critical reception of Anglo-Irish writing, 1800–30, is currently under preparation.

Published contributions include ‘Educating the Reading Public: British Critical Reception of Maria Edgeworth’s Early Irish Writing’, The Irish University Review 28:2 (Autumn/Winter 1998); ‘The Desire of the West: The Aran Islands and Irish Identity in Emily Lawless's Grania’, Regionalism and Nineteenth-Century Ireland, edd. G. Hooper & L. Litvack (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1999); and ‘Reading Anorexia as Metaphor: Eavan Boland’s In Her Own Image’, Colby Quarterly forthcoming. She has also presented a number of conference papers covering various aspects of Anglo-Irish fiction and reviews from the Romantic era.

Copyright Information

This article is copyright © 2000 Centre for Editorial and Intertextual Research, and is the result of the independent labour of the scholar or scholars credited with authorship.  The material contained in this document may be freely distributed, as long as the origin of information used has been properly credited in the appropriate manner (e.g. through bibliographic citation, etc.).

Referring to this Article

J. E. BELANGER. ‘Some Preliminary Remarks on the Production and Reception of Fiction Relating to Ireland, 1800–1829’, Cardiff Corvey: Reading the Romantic Text, 4 (May 2000).


Online: Internet (date accessed): https://www.romtext.org.uk/articles/cc04_n02/

Some Preliminary Remarks on the Production and Reception of Fiction Relating to Ireland, 1800–1829

I

In 1829, just after Catholic Emancipation had been granted, Lady Morgan wrote: ‘Among the Multitudinous effects of Catholic emancipation, I do not hesitate to predict a change in the character of Irish authorship’. [1] Morgan was quite right to predict a change in ‘Irish authorship’ after the eventful date of 1829, not least because, in the first and most obvious instance, one of the foremost subjects to have occupied the attentions of Irish authors in the first three decades of the early nineteenth century—Catholic Emancipation—was no longer such a central issue and attention was to shift instead to issues revolving around parliamentary independence from Britain. However, while important changes did occur after 1829, it could also be argued that the nature of ‘Irish authorship’—and in particular authorship of fiction relating to Ireland—was altering rapidly throughout the 1820s. It was not only the case that the number of novels representing Ireland in some form increased over the course of the 1820s, but it also appears that publishing of this type of fiction came to be dominated by male authors, a trend that might be seen to relate both to general shifts in the pattern for fiction of this time and to specific conditions in British expectations of fiction that sought to represent Ireland.

IndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIt is in order to assess and explore some of the trends in the production and reception of fiction relating to Ireland during the period 1800–29 that this essay provides a bibliography of those novels with significant Irish aspects. Stephen J. Brown, in his important bibliography Ireland in Fiction, provides a list of such titles from the earliest known novel identified by him—Virtue Rewarded; or the Irish Princess (1693)—through to the early twentieth century. The second volume, by Brown and Desmond Clarke, covers fiction published from 1918 to 1960 and also adds details for other earlier titles not included in the first volume. [2] Together these two volumes provide a useful resource for anyone studying Irish fiction written in the English language. However, while comprehensive, Brown’s bibliography does not offer an entirely complete list of fictional titles published between the years 1800–29. Based on new information on fiction from this period emerging from bibliographic studies such as The English Novel 1770–1829, [3] an update to Ireland in Fiction is perhaps justified, in that some new titles can be added to the bibliography provided by Brown and Clarke, and further publication details and author attributions that have only recently been made available can be appended to the information given in Brown volumes one and two. In total, it appears that there are twenty-three titles appearing in the first three decades of the nineteenth century that are not listed in either volume of Ireland in Fiction.

IndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIt is hoped that in bringing all these titles together in one checklist, a more comprehensive and thorough understanding of fiction relating to Ireland published in the period between the ratification of the Act of Union in 1800 and the granting of Catholic Emancipation in 1829 may be achieved. While it is perhaps a critical commonplace in studies of Irish fiction that after 1800 there were a significant number of novels that sought to represent or ‘explain’ Ireland to British readers in the wake of the Union, placing such works alongside novels that are not explicitly ‘national tales’ or ‘Irish novels’ per se can perhaps expand the understanding of the variety of ways in which Ireland appeared in fiction of this period. As a result of examining a wider range of such novels, fictional debates surrounding the Union between Britain and Ireland, issues of religious tolerance, and questions concerning the formation of national identity can be seen not solely in terms of the works of Maria Edgeworth, Sydney Owenson (Lady Morgan), and the Banim brothers, but also in terms of a whole range of novels written by both Anglo-Irish and British authors. This essay seeks not only to trace some of the major trends in the production and reception of fiction relating to Ireland, but also, in offering an overview of the representations of Ireland in Romantic-era novels and tales, to provide a basis for a greater contextualisation of ‘Irish novels’ in terms of the entirety of a fictional discourse surrounding Ireland that emerges in a number of novels published between 1800 and 1829.

IndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentThere are a number of different types of titles included within the very broad (and admittedly rather awkwardly phrased) category of ‘fiction relating to Ireland’. What emerges from even the most cursory glance over the bibliography of these works is the variety of ways in which Ireland appeared in fiction of this time—as setting for an historical or gothic romance (Ann Doherty’s The Knight of the Glen); in the case of Dublin, as a scene of ‘fashionable life’ comparable in some ways to London, Edinburgh, or Bath (Charles Sedley’s Winter In Dublin); as a site that could denote revolutionary potential (Caroline Lamb’s Glenarvon); or as locus of the ‘national tale’ (Owenson’s The Wild Irish Girl). Given the wealth of material, some judgements had to made as to what novels were included in this bibliography, so before analysing some of the patterns that emerge upon an examination of this body of fiction, a brief word is necessary about the criteria used to include titles in the checklist accompanying this essay. In discussing Wales in the fiction of the Romantic period, Andrew Davies defines the scope of what is included under the heading of ‘Wales-Related Romantic Fiction’ as fiction ‘which is, to varying degrees, concerned with or set in Wales’. [4] Brown, in the first volume of Ireland in Fiction, states that the scope of his work includes ‘all works of fiction […] dealing with Ireland or with the Irish abroad’. [5] Both Davies’s and Brown’s comments provide useful points of departure for setting the parameters of my own checklist, but a closer analysis of the kinds of titles encompassed by such broad definitions is necessary to an understanding of the full range of titles included in this list. [6]

IndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentThe first group of novels included for analysis here are those works—perhaps the most well-known of all the novels in this bibliography—that make some claim to be Irish ‘national tales’, such as Owenson’s The Wild Irish Girl. Katie Trumpener sees the ‘thick evocation of place’ as one of the defining characteristics of the ‘national tale’ as a genre, and in the case of Ireland, such works often seek to represent various aspects of Ireland in order to ‘address questions of cultural distinctiveness, national policy, and political separatism’. [7] In many cases written with a British audience in mind, these tales and novels often tend to be characterised by what Marilyn Butler has called (in speaking of Maria Edgeworth’s Castle Rackrent) ‘serious sociological observations’ about the speech, customs, and history of various strata in Irish and Anglo-Irish society. [8]

IndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentPerhaps in contrast to the national tale’s ‘thick evocation of place’ are those works that have their geographical setting in Ireland but that may not offer much commentary on Irish politics, society or culture. An example of this type of novel is Ann Doherty’s Knight of the Glen, an historical romance set in Ireland, which employs details such as bards and harps to provide a sheen of authenticity. Ireland in this novel is used in much the same ways that both Scotland and Wales were also used in fiction at this time, as a setting that reflected the interest in all that was seen to be remote from contemporary England. In including a work such as The Knight of the Glen, one must be wary of what W. J. McCormack has called ‘some of the crudities embedded in notions of geographical setting’. [9] In making this comment, McCormack is arguing that the study of what constitutes ‘Irish literature’ should not be bounded solely by considerations of setting (thus his call to examine Edgeworth’s Irish tales alongside works set elsewhere, such as Belinda and Patronage). However, an attention to ‘setting’ can in fact provide another way of broadening the study of what constitutes an ‘Irish novel’ and of the function of Ireland in fiction of this time.

IndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIt is the particular question of what made Ireland available to be used in certain ways in the first place that is most intriguing and that perhaps can best lend itself to a deeper understanding of why Ireland might have been chosen as a particular setting and of how Ireland was viewed by British readers at this time. What did it mean, for example, to evoke an Irish setting or to portray an Irish character, and what sort of associations would have been raised in the minds of a British readership upon encountering such scenes or characters? While a full exploration of all these questions is not the focus of this particular investigation, it is in order to open up some of these questions that this bibliography is provided and some preliminary analysis of the production and reception of this fiction is attempted here.

IndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIn the first instance, it is perhaps the pervasiveness of ‘Irish issues’ in British politics of this time, as well as the fact that Ireland became something of a ‘fashionable’ topic for fiction after the success of The Wild Irish Girl (which will be discussed in more detail later), that in many cases prompted novelists to add an Irish dimension to their works. A number of titles in the checklist offered here do address political, social and religious issues (although they do not explicitly announce themselves as ‘national tales’), but even in the most cursory treatments of Irish subjects, themes, or characters in fiction of this period, authors often felt the need to engage in some way with questions such as relations between the ‘sister kingdoms’ or issues of religious tolerance. It seems that in many cases one could not write a novel that was connected with Ireland without in some way acknowledging the specific issues raised by that choice of setting, even if it was in the most crude and general way.

IndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentAnna Maria Mackenzie’s The Irish Guardian (1809), for example, is set largely in Portugal and England and has only one central Irish character (the feckless and blundering ‘Irish Guardian’ of the original title). However, the final lines of the novel—spoken by this Irish character who miraculously loses the thick brogue that has characterised his speech throughout the novel—are interesting for what they indicate about an awareness of the specificity of the subject material: ‘the time is not far distant, when Albion and Hibernia shall know no difference of opinion, but strongly—firmly—and invariably unite in the great—the just—the glorious cause—of KING AND COUNTRY!’ [10] In a work that, at first glance, might not be included in a bibliography of ‘Ireland-related fiction’ on the grounds of both ‘setting’ and ‘concern’, this final remark raises the question of why there was the need to place such a comment in the mouth of this Irish character (who suddenly speaks ‘standard’ English). Even if this remark is just a political commonplace, that the insertion of a commonplace in such a work was at all necessary might be indicative of the political climate of the day (a climate that demanded an insistence on loyalty to ‘King and Country’), or of an author attempting to exploit the patriotic fervour of some sections of a British audience.

IndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIf the case of The Irish Guardian highlights some of the questions involved in determining readers’ expectations of fiction relating to Ireland during this time, novels such as Caroline Lamb’s Glenarvon raise issues of how to treat fiction in which particular aspects of or events in Ireland are used either as a ‘backdrop’ or to signal concern with other issues not necessarily specific to Ireland. Nicola Watson observes that Ireland provided a strategic site for Romantic authors wishing to engage in debates surrounding sensibility and revolution, and she points to the unique place occupied by Ireland in fiction of this period:

Ireland could be imagined, paradoxically, as a locus at once of foreign and domestic revolution—a perception which informs many anti-Jacobin novels, whose villains, generally French, are gleefully prone to involvement with the Irish disturbances. […] The novelist’s Ireland thus became a privileged site […] for the residual revolutionary romance of sensibility […] a region into which the struggle between Jacobin and anti-Jacobin narratives migrated rapidly and comfortably. [11]

Ireland—and in particular the United Irishmen rising of 1798—can thus be co-opted and enlisted in the struggle between competing ideologies and political allegiances and to signal revolutionary energy. Watson mentions both Charles Lucas’s The Infernal Quixote (1801) and Eaton Stannard Barrett’s The Heroine; or the Adventures of Cherubina (1813) as examples of novels that include characters whose ‘rabble-rousing in Ireland’ and support for the 1798 Rebellion and Catholic emancipation mark them out as potential threats to British society. [12]

IndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentAlthough Lady Caroline Lamb’s Glenarvon (1816) is set almost entirely in Ireland during the rebellion of 1798, a number of critics have questioned whether Ireland in this case is merely a ‘backdrop’ to the central narrative of the seduction of the heroine Calantha by Glenarvon. [13] However, the novel does involve Glenarvon in the rebellion of 1798 (firstly as a rebel leader, and later, when he changes allegiances and fights on the side of the government), and does attempt to detail some of the political and social unrest occurring during the late 1790s in Ireland. As Malcolm Kelsall convincingly argues, Glenarvon can in fact be productively read in terms of the tensions and contradictions within Whig policies and attitudes towards Ireland, thus perhaps indicating that the novel is far more actively involved with issues relating to Ireland than many critics would allow. [14] I would argue against reducing the representation of Ireland in novels such as Glenarvon to a place of secondary importance in part because events such as the 1798 uprising held for British readers a whole set of highly evocative associations not only related to the French Revolution and war and upheaval abroad, but also related to particular issues of domestic disturbance—as Watson argues, of a perhaps uniquely Irish threat seen as both ‘foreign and domestic’. Therefore, novels such Glenarvon, The Heroine, and The Infernal Quixote, in which Ireland may not occupy a particularly prominent place in the narrative or for which the importance of whose ‘Irish dimension’ is contested, have been included here.

IndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIt has perhaps become obvious by now that, generally speaking, I have tried to err on the side of inclusiveness, including both ‘national tales’ and those novels that take Ireland as their setting or have prominent Irish characters but which do not (on the surface) seem to directly engage in any serious or significant way with Ireland as either a specific locale or as a unique political, cultural or social entity (such as The Knight of the Glen). Also included are those works that represent particular events such as the 1798 Rising for which an argument might be made that they reveal certain meanings attached to Ireland at this particular time. I make no claims that this bibliography is exhaustive, or that some of the decisions I have made could not be easily challenged—it stands largely as a preliminary exercise offered to stimulate debate, to open up questions about Ireland in fiction of the romantic period, and to perhaps provide leads for other, more specific studies of this fiction (such as the representation of 1798, for example). It is hoped that including such a range of works will lead to a more complete understanding of the variety of meanings Ireland held for readers of fiction published during the first thirty years of the nineteenth century.


II
Patterns of Production and Reception

1829 saw the publication of the highest number of novels relating to Ireland, with ten identified for this year, while the 1820s in general were the most productive decade for the novel concerned with Ireland, with fifty-two novels appearing between 1820 and 1829, as compared with nineteen for the period 1800–09 and forty-three for 1810–19. High points in the production of this fiction were 1808 and 1810, with seven new novels appearing in each of these years, 1825 with eight, and 1818 with nine. Broadly speaking, the figures for novels representing Ireland do correlate with those for the overall production of fiction for the Romantic period, as the high points for the Romantic novel generally occurred in 1808 and in the early 1820s, falling after around 1824. [15] Fig. 1 shows the total number of novel relating to Ireland, reflecting the fact that 1818 and 1829 were particular high points for the publication of such titles. Fig 2. shows the production of novels relating to Ireland as a percentage of the total output of fiction during this time, and reveals that, for 1818, novels representing Ireland accounted for over 14% of the total number of novels published that year. [16]

Fig. 1. Output of Ireland-Related Fiction, 1800–1829

IndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentAs Peter Garside has noted, it is really only with the publication in 1806 of Sydney Owenson’s The Wild Irish Girl, that the novel representing Ireland became popular: ‘it was undoubtedly Lady Morgan’s example that encouraged a flood of Irish and other ‘national’ tales between 1806 and 1810’. [17]

Up to 1808, only seven titles had appeared that were concerned with Ireland, compared with a total of twelve for the combined years of 1808 and 1809, perhaps indicating that Maria Edgeworth’s Castle Rackrent did not necessary spawn a plethora of imitators, and also calling into question the notion that the 1801 Union itself prompted authors to attempt fictional representations of Ireland in order to ‘explain’ Ireland to their ‘sister kingdom’. While this post-1806 rise in the number of novels claiming to be ‘national’ tales of Ireland or representing Ireland in some form might be attributed to the success of The Wild Irish Girl, it should also be seen in the context of a general rise in the production of novels occurring at this time. As Garside notes, a significant increase in fictional output occurred in the years 1808–09, partly as a result of a growth in the market both for the sort of ‘scandal fiction’ and ‘royal’ titles prompted by events such as the scandal surrounding the separation of the Prince and Princess of Wales, and for fictions that detailed fashionable life. [18] Cases such as Sedley’s Winter in Dublin, which combines descriptions of Ireland and Irish life with such descriptions of the fashionable life, indicate the need to place the increase in Ireland-related fiction in terms of more general changes in fictional output.

Fig. 2. Output of Ireland-Related vs Total Titles, 1800–1829

IndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentUnlike the general pattern for Romantic-era fiction, output of fiction relating to Ireland in the 1810s is higher than in the 1800s, in part due to the success not only of The Wild Irish Girl, but also of Ennui in 1809 and The Absentee in 1812; the appearance of Waverley in 1814 also is likely to have prompted many authors to publish ‘regional’ novels. While certainly The Wild Irish Girl did encourage a number of imitators, most reviewers after 1809 cite Edgeworth as the prime source of influence for subsequent representations of Ireland, perhaps because Edgeworth’s emphasis on rationality and utility suited British reviewers far more than Morgan’s potentially subversive romantic nationalism. In the case, for example, of Alinda, or the Child of Mystery by Amelia Beauclerc, a novel that is partially set in Ireland, the reviewer in the Monthly Review remarks that the novel contains ‘a tolerable representation of a poor Irish domestic, which character is much in vogue with the novel writer, perhaps from ample materials for its delineation which have been furnished by Miss Edgeworth’. [19]

IndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentAlthough the appearance of the Irish tales of Maria Edgeworth and the Scottish historical novels of Walter Scott in the 1810s seemed to prompt a rise in the number of novels representing Irish scenes or characters, the real high point for this type of novel occurs in the late 1820s, which represents a slightly different pattern than that for overall fictional output, which, as mentioned earlier, peaked around 1824. In part, this increase may be attributed to the attention given to Irish issues in Britain (in parliamentary reports, newspapers, and literary reviews and magazines, for example) as a result of the growing political agitation for Catholic Emancipation and the rising incidence of agrarian violence in Ireland throughout the 1820s. If Ireland did indeed occupy a prominent place in British public affairs, especially during the later half of the 1820s, then the rise of the number of novels representing Ireland can perhaps be seen as part of this overall interest in Ireland and as filling a particular and important niche in the British market for fiction.

IndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentThat the mid- to late 1820s is indeed a productive time for the novel relating to Ireland is borne out by numerous comments in British reviews of the time. A notice of the novel Hearts of Steel in the Literary Gazette states:

We really do not know whether we can reconcile it to our consciences to praise even a good book, so numerous and so evil are its consequences: one successful work, like one sterling guinea, occasions such a host of counterfeits. Two successful novels have lately appeared on Irish subjects, and the consequence is, we are overwhelmed with paddies and potatoes; and the present publication is one of the many. [20]

A reviewer in the Edinburgh Review echoes this comment in stating that ‘at present Ireland bids fair to be the great mart of fiction. […] We may expect a sufficiently abundant product from that quarter. Indeed, there has been, as yet, but little time lost in the manufacture; as, within the last year, there have appeared about a dozen Irish novels, and we observe with some slight degree of alarm, that a still further supply has been announced’. [21] Novels relating to Ireland are often not reviewed individually during this time, but as a group, indicating not only that they are perhaps being produced faster than reviewers can keep up, but also that a body of fiction defined specifically as ‘Irish’ is being built up and recognised by literary reviewers as a distinct category of fiction. What is clear from these comments, however, is that fictional titles relating to Ireland were perceived as appearing at such a rate that only the language of economics and the market would suffice to describe the phenomenon.

IndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentOn the issue of gender and authorship, the pattern for fictional titles relating to Ireland follows that of the larger pattern for British Romantic fiction, with the 1820s seeing a shift towards male authorship. The general pattern for fiction reveals that the 1810s were dominated by women authors, as were the 1800s to a lesser degree, while for fiction relating to Ireland, women authors predominated during the 1800s but the 1810s were largely balanced between male and female authorship. This shift towards male domination of the fiction market has undoubtedly, as Ina Ferris has noted, much to do with Scott’s emergence on the scene and his role in turning a genre that had hitherto largely been associated with women writers and women readers into one that was considered more ‘serious’ and thus a legitimate field for male authors. [22] While certainly the case for fiction relating to Ireland should be seen in terms of this overall shift, reviews of these novels in a number of British periodicals of this time also give other interesting clues that the case of Ireland might have particular factors that make male authorship significant and important.

IndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentAs early as the 1820s, British reviewers were beginning to reassess the contributions of Morgan and Edgeworth—the two women authors who dominated Irish fiction during the first two decades of the nineteenth century—both to Anglo-Irish fiction and to the understanding of Ireland in Britain. Edgeworth and Morgan remained central to critical debates surrounding Ireland, gender, and the novel for several years to come, but increasingly their works were used as points of comparison to illustrate how subsequent representations of Ireland had improved upon the earlier depictions offered by these two authors. Reviewers were coming to find Edgeworth’s and Morgan’s representations of Ireland unsatisfactory and were increasingly comparing the works of these two Anglo-Irish women authors to the fiction of authors such as John Banim and his brother Michael—the Catholic sons of a shopkeeper—whose novels detailed rural peasant and middle-class Catholic life in Ireland. For British reviewers, the work of the Banims provides Ireland with its own version of Walter Scott, and nearly every review of the Banims in fact feels the need to mention Scott.

IndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentBritish reviews from the 1820s onward reflect a significant shift in the tastes of the British reading public regarding Anglo-Irish fiction. That Emancipation, the state of rural Ireland, and Irish agrarian violence had often been at the centre of British news and politics throughout the 1820s meant that there was a growing interest in the subject of these debates—the Catholic population of Ireland. [23] The British public had frequently seen Ireland as a place foreign and ‘other’, but during the 1820s and 1830s British reviewers began to characterise Ireland explicitly as a place of violent and passionate extremes. British reviews of Anglo-Irish fiction during this time consistently point to ‘the anomalous nature of Irish national experience’, which the Westminster Review believed was defined by ‘a constantly revolving cycle of anarchy, injustice, and misrule’. [24] In these reviews, the extremes that are seen to epitomise Irish life not only render Ireland fit to be represented in ‘romance’, but also make it a place of ‘romance’ itself; a reviewer in the New Monthly Magazine states that ‘In Ireland […] common life is almost itself a romance, requiring […] no heightenings of passion, fortitude, or crime’. [25] Ireland’s social and political turmoil is in particular seen by British reviewers as the very source for powerful ‘romance’ narratives: ‘The same causes, however, that have embittered and degraded the history of Ireland […] have brought the character of its people, both moral and social, to a state which is eminently favourable to the more humble inspirations of the novelist’. [26]

IndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentThis Ireland is represented in the reviews as a society that, in its backwardness and turbulent history, is everything British society is not. According to the critic in the Westminster, the novelist depicting Ireland ‘has the melancholy privilege of drawing from the life, those passages of violent and terrible interest which the inhabitant of a less disturbed land must seek for in the records of history’. [27] The ‘real’ Ireland in these formulations is now located almost entirely in terms of the Catholic peasantry, a population whose excessive passion and violence are seen to be almost untempered by the civilising influences of British and Anglo-Irish society. In a sense, the demands of the British public for the fiction of authors such as Banim actually followed a developing line in Irish nationalist thought that equated the ‘true’ Ireland with a Catholic one, although, for British readers, this interest had as much to do with the fact that this aspect of Ireland was seen as ‘wild’ and ‘exotic’ as it did with any recognition of political realities in Ireland.

IndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentGiven this view of Ireland, it is not difficult to see why Edgeworth and Morgan were perceived by British reviewers as less capable of representing the ‘realities’ of this Ireland than an author such as John Banim. For these reviewers, the ability of Banim—and of other male ‘native’ Irish writers such as William Carleton and Gerald Griffin—to represent Ireland accurately is located both in gender terms and in terms of their status as ‘insiders’ in the society they depict. If what now characterised Ireland was violence, passion, and the Catholic peasantry, then Protestant, upper-class Anglo-Irish women writers were perhaps seen as unable to represent this Ireland convincingly not only because they did not have the same access as their Catholic counterparts to this Ireland, but also because to depict such violence and passion would have violated the bounds of ‘feminine propriety’. According to one reviewer, in fact, Edgeworth is far too ‘lady-like’ [28] to have access to this ‘real’ Ireland. While Edgeworth had always been viewed more favourably than Morgan in the British reviews for her encouragement of ‘industry’ and practical improvements for Irish society, the restraint of Edgeworth’s ‘cold’ didacticism and her unflagging emphasis on ‘utility’ certainly seemed for British reviewers somehow inappropriate to the ‘wildness’ of Ireland. In an Ireland seen by the Edinburgh Review as the ‘local habitation’ of romance, for example, ‘utility and order are the last ingredients’ suitable for representing Irish life. [29] Even Morgan’s version of a wild and romantic Ireland was still too tame for many reviewers in its concentration on the drawing rooms of fashionable and aristocratic Ireland.

IndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentFor reviewers, this ‘wild’, ‘violent’ Ireland demanded not only an inside knowledge of Irish Catholic society but also a style of writing that was unrestrained, and the language of the reviews of Banim’s work consistently emphasise what one reviewer termed the ‘rough masculine power’ of Banim’s writing. [30] Where Edgeworth’s writings are repeatedly criticised for their ‘coldness’ and ‘primness’, Banim’s writings are characterised by their ‘fieriness’ and passion; [31] the reviewer in an Edinburgh Review article of 1831 sees in Banim’s work an ‘uncultivated […] wild and rugged vigour’, and all the reviews of his work repeatedly employ terms of power, passion, and force. [32] Not only is Banim’s ‘masculine’ writing suited to his fictional depictions of Ireland—according to his British reviewers—but Banim is also seen as being able to represent Ireland accurately because he is an ‘insider’ in this society in terms of both religion and, in some cases, social class. Banim’s portrayals of Ireland are incomparable, according to the Westminster reviewer, because he ‘has an intimate and real acquaintance’ with his subject material, and shares ‘common interests’ with the people he represents because he too is Catholic. [33] The view of Banim as an ‘insider’ is confirmed by the Dublin Review: ‘He shows, indeed, on all occasions, that he considers himself of the people, and that he feels with and for them’. [34]

IndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIt would seem that while indeed the gender patterns for the production of fiction relating to Ireland at this time—and in particular ‘national tales’ such as those written by John and Michael Banim—did follow those of the pattern for fiction in general and might be attributed to Scott’s appearance on the publishing scene, in the case of Ireland these gender shifts are also perhaps tied up with questions of who was best able to represent Ireland in fiction. While of course it is difficult to determine just which came first—the rise in the number of male authors or reviewers calls for a more ‘masculine’ approach to the fictional representation of Ireland—it is clear that male authors, particularly in the later 1820s, certainly would have been welcomed on the scene and encouraged to some extent by the financial and critical successes of many of their male counterparts.

IndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentIndentA preliminary analysis of this body of fiction shows that while the production of fiction with an Irish dimension often followed those patterns for Romantic-era fiction in general in terms of overall yearly output and gender distribution of authorship, an attention to some of the specific factors surrounding a general interest in Irish affairs in British public life (prompted by agitation for Catholic emancipation, for example), and expectations on the part of British reviewers and general readers as to the ability of male authors to represent an ‘authentic’ Ireland, can shed light on some of the divergences of the patterns for Ireland-related fiction from those of the overall pattern. Ultimately, what emerges in a survey of the production and reception of fiction relating to Ireland in the first three decades of the nineteenth-century is the sheer richness and variety of representations of Ireland available to authors and readers at this time. While it has not been possible to fully explore all those patterns that emerge in Ireland-related fiction of this time, it is hoped that by providing a preliminary bibliography of these titles and offering a general overview of some of the larger issues and patterns that emerge from an examination of this list, that more detailed and specific studies of various aspects of this body of fiction can be made possible.


Notes

1. Lady Morgan, Book of the Boudoir, 2 vols (London: Henry Colburn, 1829), I, vii.

2. Stephen J. Brown, Ireland in Fiction: A Guide to Irish Novels, Tales, Romances and Folk-lore, vol. 1 (New York: Burt Franklin, 1919) and Stephen J. Brown and Desmond Clarke, Ireland in Fiction, vol. 2 (Cork: Royal Carbery Books, 1985).

3. Peter Garside, James Raven and Rainer Schöwerling (general eds), The English Novel 1770-1829: A Bibliographical Survey of Prose Fiction Published in the British Isles, 2 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

4. A. J. Davies, ‘ “The Gothic Novel in Wales” Revisited: A Preliminary Survey of the Wales-Related Romantic Fiction at Cardiff University’, Cardiff Corvey: Reading the Romantic Text 2 (June 1998). Online: Internet (27 Mar 2000): <http://www.cf.ac.uk/encap/corvey/articles/cc02_n01.html>.

5. Brown, Ireland in Fiction, p. x.

6. It should be noted that I have confined myself to titles in the English language. This is not only because of my own lack of knowledge of the Irish language, but also because my own interest lies in those works produced for an English-speaking audience, particularly for a British audience. It is also for this reason that this essay confines itself largely to a discussion of the British reception of these fictional works. There is not the scope here to discuss the reception of these works in Ireland, although that is a necessary part of understanding the entire reception history of these novels and tales. Also, a survey of Ireland-related fiction in the eighteenth-century is outside the scope of this essay, but again would be valuable in assessing larger shifts in the production and reception of such fiction over the course of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

7. Katie Trumpener, Bardic Nationalism: The Romantic Novel and the British Empire (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1997), pp. 131 and 132.

8. Marilyn Butler, Maria Edgeworth: A Literary Biography (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), p. 356.

9. W. J. McCormack, From Burke to Beckett; Ascendancy, Tradition and Betrayal in Literary History (Cork: Cork University Press, 1994), p. 95.

10. Quoted from Anna Maria Mackenzie, Almeria D’Aviero; or, the Errors of Eccentricity, 3 vols (1809; London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1811), III, 279, a reissue of The Irish Guardian.

11. Nicola J. Watson, Revolution and the Form of the British Novel, 1790-1825: Intercepted Letters, Interrupted Seductions (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), p. 112.

12. Ibid., p. 112. Issues of influence and intertextuality have also helped to determine the novels I have included in the bibliography; in the case of The Heroine, for example, Watson discusses the fact that Barrett is engaging with, and perhaps offering a politically conservative re-writing of, novels such as The Wild Irish Girl. For issues of influence, see also the Monthly Review of Alinda discussed later in this essay.

13. Trumpener states, for example, ‘Foregrounding her own seduction and desertion (against a background of harp music and sublime Irish landscape), Lamb reduces the 1798 uprising to mere background action, come and gone in the space between chapters’ (Bardic Nationalism, p. 333, note 61).

14. Malcolm Kelsall, ‘The Byronic Hero and Revolution in Ireland: The Politics of Glenarvon‘, The Byron Journal 9 (1981), 4-19.

15. See Garside, introduction to vol. 2 of The English Novel 1770-1829 (esp. pp. 38-49) for a full discussion and analysis of fictional output in the years 1800-29.

16. While this does reflect the fact that 1818 was a high point for fiction relating to Ireland, it is also possible that there were, overall, fewer novels published for this year, thus making the percentage look higher for 1818 than for 1829, which was the year which saw the publication of the highest number of novels with some Irish dimension.

17. Peter Garside, ‘Popular Fiction and National Tale: The Hidden Origins of Scott’s Waverley’, Nineteenth-Century Literature 46:1 (1991), 51.

18. Garside, The English Novel 1770-1829, II, 42.

19. Review of Alinda, or the Child of Mystery, Monthly Review 72 (Nov 1813), 327.

20. Literary Gazette 456 (Saturday, 15 Oct 1825), 666.

21. Edinburgh Review 43 (Feb 1826), 359-60.

22. See Ina Ferris, The Achievement of Literary Authority: Gender, History and the Waverly Novels (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 1991).

23. Thomas Flanagan comments that what emerged for the British public from the 1825 Parliamentary select committee inquiring into the ‘state of Ireland’ was ‘a bewildering picture of an island where law and order in the English sense could hardly be said to have existed’. Thomas Flanagan, The Irish Novelists, 1800-1850 (New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1959), p. 172.

24. Westminster Review 10 (Apr 1829), 349.

25. New Monthly Magazine 19 (Jan 1827), 21.

26. Edinburgh Review 43 (Feb 1826), 358.

27. Westminster Review 9 (Apr 1828), 423.

28. Ibid., p. 423.

29. Edinburgh Review 43 (Feb 1826), 357 and 359.

30. Edinburgh Review 52 (Jan 1831), 414.

31. New Monthly Magazine 20 (Jan 1827), 23.

32. Edinburgh Review 52 (Jan 1831), 414. Similar comments about the ‘power’ and ‘vigour’ of Banim’s writing occur in the Westminster Review 9 (Apr 1828), 422-40, the Monthly Review 2 (Aug 1826), 354-64, and the Dublin Review 4 (Apr 1838), 495-543. This terminology of ‘power’ and ‘vigour’ are typical reviewing descriptions of ‘masculine’ writing in the nineteenth century, as both Nina Baym and Nicola Thompson point out. See Nicola Diane Thompson, Reviewing Sex: Gender and the Reception of Victorian Novels (London: Macmillan, 1996) and Nina Baym, Novels, Readers, and Reviewers: Responses to Fiction in Antebellum America (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 1984).

33. Westminster Review 9 (Apr 1828), 428.

34. Dublin Review 4 (Apr 1838), 503-04.


III

Checklist of Ireland-Related Fiction, 1800–1829

Where a title is listed in Stephen Brown, Ireland in Fiction, vols 1 or 2 (with Desmond Clarke), this is noted after the full entry. In most cases, Brown and Clarke offer plot summaries pointing to the ‘Irish’ content of the works. For further details concerning ESTC, NSTC and other catalogue entries, see Garside, Raven and Schöwerling, The English Novel 1770–1829. Each entry gives the following information:

  • Author name. Where the author’s name is known through later attribution, the name is given in square brackets.
  • Full title details from the title page of the first edition. Where this information is gleaned from later editions, this is given in the notes section.
  • Publisher, date, format information. Where the novel was first published in Britain, the first Irish edition is also given in the Notes section, if known. Where first published in Ireland, the first British edition is given in the notes.
  • Notes. This contains details of American editions, as well as French and German translations. Any relevant information, such as dedications or lists of subscribers, that might contain information about the ‘Irish’ nature of the title is also included.

1800

(1)
[EDGEWORTH, Maria].
Castle Rackrent, an Hibernian Tale. Taken from Facts, and from the Manners of the Irish Squires, before the Year 1782.
(London: Printed for J. Johnson, 1800). 1 vol. 8vo.
* ‘Advertisement to the English Reader’, followed by ‘Glossary’, pp. [xv]–xliv.
Further edns: Dublin, 1800 (Printed for P. Wogan, H. Colbert, P. Byrne, W. Porter, J. Halpen, [and 5 others in Dublin])
[Brown, vol. 1]


1801

(2)
[COLPOYS, Mrs].
The Irish Excursion, or I Fear To Tell You. A Novel. In Four Volumes.
(London: Printed at the Minerva-Press, 1801). 4 vols. 12mo.
* Vignette, consisting of two hands, clasping a rose, thistle, and shamrock, on t.p.
Further edn: Dublin 1801.
[Brown, vol. 1]

(3)
LUCAS, Charles.
The Infernal Quixote. A Tale of the Day. In Four Volumes. By Charles Lucas, A.M. Author of The Castle of St. Donats, &c.
(London: Printed at the Minerva-Press, for William Lane, 1801). 4 vols. 12mo.
* Further edn: French trans., 1802.


1803

(4)
O[WENSON], S[ydney] [afterwards MORGAN, Lady Sydney].
St. Clair; or, the Heiress of Desmond. By S. O.
(Dublin: Printed by Brett Smith, for Messrs. Wogan, Brown, Halpin, Colbert, Jon Dornin, Jackson, and Medcalf, 1803). 1 vol. 12mo.
* Preface dated 7 Nov 1802. Further edns: London 1803
[Brown, vol. 1]


1804

(5)
PORTER, Anna Maria.
The Lake of Killarney: A Novel, In Three Volumes. By Anna Maria Porter, Author of Octavia, Walsh Colville, &c. &c.
(London: Printed for T. N. Longman and O. Rees, 1804). 3 vols. 12mo.
* Dedication ‘to the Reverend Percival Stockdale, Rector of Lesbury In Northumberland’. Preface dated Thames Ditton, 1804.
[Brown, vol. 1]


1806

(6)
OWENSON, [Sydney] [afterwards MORGAN, Lady Sydney].
The Wild Irish Girl; A National Tale. By Miss Owenson, Author of St. Clair, The Novice of St. Dominick, &c. &c. &c. In Three Volumes.
(London: Printed for Richard Phillips, 1806). 3 vols. 12mo.
[Brown, vol. 1]


1807

(7)
IRELAND, [Samuel] W[illiam] H[enry].
The Catholic, an Historical Romance. By W. H. Ireland, Author of The Abbess, 4 Vol. Gondez, or the Monk, 4 Vol. &c. &c. &c.
(London: Printed for W. Earle, 1807). 3 vols. 12mo.
* ‘To the Reader’ (in verse) at beginning of vol. 3.


1808

(8)
ANON.
Newminster Abbey, or the Daughter of O’More. A Novel, Founded on Facts. And Interspersed with Original Poetry and Picturesque and Faithful Sketches of Various Countries. In Two Volumes.
(London: Printed by B. Clarke, Well-Street, Cripplegate, for J. F. Hughes, 1808). 2 vols. 12mo.

(9)
GENLIS, [Stéphanie-Félicité, Comtesse] de.
The Earl of Cork; or, Seduction without Artifice. A Romance. To Which Are Added, Six Interesting Tales. In Three Volumes. By Madame De Genlis, Author of Alphonsine, Tales of the Castle, Siege of Rochelle, &c. &c.
(London: Printed for J. F. Hughes, 1808). 3 vols. 12mo.
* Trans. of Le Comte de Corke surnommé le Grand, ou la séduction sans artifice, suivi de six nouvelles (Paris, 1805). Preface gives biographical details about Earl of Cork (d. 1613). Vol. 2 contains three additional titles ‘The young Penitent’ (to p. 90), ‘Zumelinde; or, the young old Lady’ (pp. 91–135), ‘The Lovers without Love’ (pp. 137–216); vol. 3 contains ‘Introduction’, ‘The Tulip Tree; an Oriental Tale’ (pp. 3–61), ‘The Savinias; or the Twins’ (pp. 63–167).
[Brown, vol. 2]

(10)
[MATURIN, Charles Robert].
The Wild Irish Boy. In Three Volumes. By the Author of Montorio.
(London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, by J. D. Dewick, 1808). 3 vols. 12mo.
* Dedication ‘to the Right Honorable the Earl of Moira’, signed ‘The Author of Montorio’. Preface stating that ‘My first work was said to be too defective in female characters and female interest’ (p. [ix]). Further edns: 2nd edn. 1824; New York 1808; French trans., 1828 [as Le Jeune Irlandais (BN)].
[Brown, vol. 1]

(11)
[MOSSE], Henrietta Rouviere.
The Old Irish Baronet; or, Manners of My Country. A Novel. In Three Volumes. By Henrietta Rouviere, Author of Lussington Abbey, Heirs of Villeroy, A Peep at Our Ancestors, &c. &c.
(London: Printed at the Minerva-Press, for Lane, Newman, and Co. 1808). 3 vols. 12mo.

(12)
[PECK, Frances].
The Maid of Avon. A Novel for the Haut Ton. In Three Volumes. By an Irishwoman.
(London: Printed at the Minerva-Press, for Lane, Newman, and Co.1808). 3 vols. 12mo.

(13)
PLUNKETT, [Elizabeth] [née GUNNING].
The Exile of Erin, a Novel, in Three Volumes. By Mrs. Plunkett, Late Miss Gunning.
(London: Printed by T. Plummer, for B. Crosby and Co., 1808). 3 vols. 12mo.
* Further edn: Alexandria, VA, 1809.
[Brown, vol. 2]

(14)
SEDLEY, Charles [pseud.?].
A Winter in Dublin: A Descriptive Tale. By Charles Sedley, Esq. Author of The Barouche Driver, Infidel Mother, Mask of Fashion, &c. &c. &c. In Three Volumes.
(London: Printed by D. N. Shury, for J. F. Hughes, 1808). 3 vols. 12mo.
* Dedication to Mr Sheriff Phillips, signed ‘the Publisher’, 5 Wigmore Street, 24 Oct 1807. Preface, signed Charles Sedley, Ramsgate, 17 Oct 1807.
[Brown, vol. 2]


1809

(15)
EDGEWORTH, [Maria].
Tales of Fashionable Life, by Miss Edgeworth, Author of Practical Education, Belinda, Castle Rackrent, Essay on Irish Bulls, &c. In Three Volumes.
(London: Printed for J. Johnson, 1809). 3 vols. 12 mo.
* I Ennui; II Almeria, Madame de Fleury, and the Dun; III Manoeuvring. Preface in vol. 1, signed ‘Richard Lovell Edgeworth. Edgeworth’s Town, March 1809’. Further edns: Georgetown 1809. French trans. of vols. 4–6, 1813–14 [as Scènes de la vie du grand monde (BN)], also of ‘Ennui’, 1812; German trans. of ‘Manoeuvring’, 1814 [as Schleichkünste (RS)], and ‘Ennui’, 1814 [as Denkwürdigkeiten des Grafen von Glenthorn (RS)], and ‘Vivian’, 1814 [as Vivian, oder der Mann ohne Charakter (RS)], and ‘Emilie de Coulanges’ [as Emilie, oder der Frauenzwist (RS)], 1815.
[Brown, vol. 1. Only Ennui is given an entry.]

(16)
ISDELL, Sarah.
The Irish Recluse; or, a Breakfast at the Rotunda. In Three Volumes. By Sarah Isdell, Author of The Vale of Louisiana.
(London: Printed for J. Booth, 1809). 3 vols. 12mo.
* Dedication to Sir Edward Denny, Bart., Tralee Castle.

(17)
MACKENZIE, [Anna Maria].
The Irish Guardian, or, Errors of Eccentricity. In Three Volumes. By Mrs. Mackenzie.
(London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1809). 3 vols. 12mo.
* Preface, vol. 1, pp. [i]–iv, signed Anna Maria Mackenzie, reads: ‘The Author perceives she cannot conclude without paying a feeble tribute of praise to those male writers, who have thought it no degradation of their dignity […] to […] improve and amuse in the form of a novel’ (p. iv). Further edn: 1811 as Almeria D’Aveiro; or, the Irish Guardian.

(18)
MELVILLE, Theodore.
The Irish Chieftain, and His Family. A Romance. In Four Volumes. By Theodore Melville, Esq. Author of The White Knight, The Benevolent Monk, &c.
London: Printed at the Minerva-Press, for Lane, Newman, and Co. Leadenhall-Street, 1809.
4 vols. 12mo.
[Brown, vol. 1]

(19)
TROTTER, J[ohn] B[ernard].
Stories for Calumniators: Interspersed with Remarks on the Disadvantages, Misfortunes, and Habits of the Irish. In Two Volumes. By J. B. Trotter, Esq.
(Dublin: Printed by H. Fitzpatrick, 1809). 2 vols. 12mo.
* Dedication ‘to the Right Honourable Lord Holland’, dated Richmond, Dec 1809.
[Brown, vol. 1]


1810

(20)
ANON.
The Soldier of Pennaflor: Or, a Season In Ireland. A Tale of the Eighteenth Century. In Five Volumes.
(Cork: Printed by John Connor, and Sold by A. K. Newman and Co., London 1810).
5 vols. 12mo.
Further edn: London 1811.

(21)
AGG, John.
Mac Dermot; or, the Irish Chieftain. A Romance, Intended as a Companion to the Scottish Chiefs. By John Agg. In Three Volumes.
(London: Printed by J. Dean, for George Shade, Sold by Sherwood, Neely, and Jones, 1810).
3 vols. 12mo.
[Brown, vol. 2]

(22)
[ARNOLD, Lieut.].
The Irishmen; a Military-Political Novel, wherein the Idiom of Each Character is carefully Preserved, and the Utmost Precaution Constantly Taken to Render the Ebullitionary Phrases, Peculiar to the Sons of Erin, Inoffensive as well as Entertaining. In Two Volumes. By a Native Officer.
(London: Printed at the Minerva-Press, for A. K. Newman and Co., 1810). 2 vols. 12mo.
[Brown, vol. 1. Brown lists as ‘Anonymous’.]

(23)
HAMILTON, Ann [Mary].
The Irishwoman in London, a Modern Novel, in Three Volumes. By Ann Hamilton.
(London: Printed for J. F. Hughes., 1810). 3 vols. 12mo.
[Brown, vol. 1]

(24)
MAXWELL, [Caroline].
The Earl of Desmond; or, O’Brien’s Cottage. An Irish Story, In Three Volumes. By Mrs. Maxwell, Author of “Lionel, or the Impenetrable Secret,” &c. &c.
(London: Printed for J. F. Hughes, 1810). 3 vols. 12mo.
* Adv. Morning Post, 25 Dec 1809, as ‘an interesting Irish story’.

(25)
[WALSH, Miss].
The Officer’s Daughter; or, a Visit to Ireland in 1790. By the Daughter of a Captain in the Navy, Deceased. In Four Volumes.
(London: Printed by Joyce Gold, 1810). 4 vols. 12mo.
* Dedication to the Hon. Mrs Fane. ‘List of Subscribers’ (224 names), vol. 1, pp. [v]–xiv.

(26)
YOUNG, Mary Julia.
The Heir of Drumcondra; or, Family Pride. In Three Volumes. By Mary Julia Young, Author of The Summer at Weymouth, The Summer at Brighton, Donalda, Rosemount Castle, East Indian, &c. &c.
(London: Printed at the Minerva-Press, for A. K. Newman and Co., 1810). 3 vols. 12mo.


1811

(27)
EDGEWORTH, Theodore.
The Shipwreck; or, Memoirs of an Irish Officer and His Family. In Three Volumes. By Theodore Edgeworth, Esq.
(London: Printed for Thomas Tegg, 1811). 3 vols. 12mo.
[Brown, vol. 1]

(28)
LEADBEATER, Mary.
Cottage Dialogues among the Irish Peasantry. By Mary Leadbeater. With Notes and a Preface by Maria Edgeworth, Author of Castle Rackrent, &c.
(London: Printed for J. Johnson and Co., 1811). 1 vol. 12mo.
* Advertisement to the Reader, signed Maria Edgeworth, Edgeworth Town, 1 July 1810. ‘Glossary and Notes for the Use of the English Reader’ occupies pp. 269–343. This work was also published in a Dublin edn., ‘Printed by J. and J. Carrick, Bachelor’s-Walk, 1811’, 167p, with a ‘List of Subscribers’, pp. iii–xi. It was followed by the same author’s Cottage Dialogues […] Part Two (Dublin, 1813), 140p, and The Landlord’s Friend, Intended as a Sequel to Cottage Dialogues (Dublin, 1813), 113p. These are short and polemical works, and are not listed separately in this checklist.
[Brown, vol. 1]

(29)
WILSON, C[harles] H[enry].
The Irish Valet; or, Whimsical Adventures of Paddy O’Haloran: Who, after Being Servant to Several Masters, Became Master of Many Servants. By the Late C. H. Wilson, Esq. of the Middle Temple. Author of Polyanthea, Brookiana, Beauties of Burke, Wandering Islander, &c. &c. To Which is Prefixed, the Life of the Author.
(London: Printed and published by M. Allen, 1811). 1 vol. 12mo.
* Dedication ‘to the Right Honorable Earl Moira’, signed ‘the Editor’.
[Brown, vol. 2]


1812

(30)
[BEAUCLERC, Amelia].
Alinda, or the Child of Mystery. A Novel. In Four Volumes. By the Author of “Ora and Juliet, Castle of Tariffa, &c.”
(London: Printed for B. and R. Crosby and Co., 1812). 4 vols. 12mo.

(31)
EDGEWORTH, [Maria]
Tales of Fashionable Life, by Miss Edgeworth, Author of Practical Education, Belinda, Castle Rackrent, Essay on Irish Bulls, &c. In Six Volumes.
(London: Printed for J. Johnson and Co, 1812). 6 vols. 12 mo.
* IV Vivian; V Emilie de Coulanges and the Beginning of The Absentee; VI The Conclusion of The Absentee. With vols. 4 to 6 t.ps. read: ‘In Six Volumes’. Preface to vol. 4, is signed ‘R. L. Edgeworth, May 1812’. French trans. of vols. 4–6, 1813–14 [as Scènes de la vie du grand monde], also of ‘Ennui’, 1812; German trans. of ‘Vivian’, 1814 [as Vivian, oder der Mann ohne Charakter], and ‘Emilie de Coulanges’ [as Emilie, oder der Frauenzwist], 1815.
[Brown, vol. 1. Only The Absentee is given an entry.]

(32)
[MATURIN, Charles Robert].
The Milesian Chief. A Romance. By the Author of Montorio, and The Wild Irish Boy. In Four Volumes.
(London: Printed for Henry Colburn, 1812). 4 vols. 12mo.
* Dedication to the Quarterly Reviewers, dated Dublin, 12 Dec 1811. Further edns: Philadelphia 1812; French trans., 1828 [as Connal, ou les Milésiens (BN)].
[Brown, vol. 1]


1813

(33)
BARRETT, Eaton Stannard.
The Heroine, or Adventures of a Fair Romance Reader, by Eaton Stannard Barrett, Esq. In Three Volumes.
(London: Printed for Henry Colburn; and Sold by George Goldie, Edinburgh, and John Cumming, Dublin, 1813). 3 vols. 12mo.
* Dedication to George Canning.
Further edns: 2nd edn. 1814 as The Heroine, or the Adventures of Cherubina; Philadelphia 1815 (from London, 2nd edn.).

(34)
DE RENZY, S[parow] S.
The Faithful Irishwoman, or the House of Dunder. By Captain S. S. De Renzy. In Two Volumes.
(London: Printed by J. Gillet, Sold by Sherwood, Neely, and Jones, 1813). 2 vols. 12mo.
* Dedication to ‘my Uncle, Sir Solomon Dunder, Bart.’ signed ‘Your affectionate Nephew, S. S. Dunder’. ‘Subscribers’ Names’ (67 listed), vol. 1.

(35)
JOHNSON, Mrs D.
The Brothers in High Life; or, the North of Ireland. A Romance, In Three Volumes. By Mrs D. Johnson.
(London: Printed for G. Kearsley, and Sold by J. Jones, 1820 [first published 1813]).
3 vols. 12mo.
* First published in 1813, but no copy with this date located. Details above follow 1820 edn.
[Brown, vol. 1. Brown gives date as 1837.]

(36)
POTTER, Matilda.
Mount Erin; an Irish Tale. In Two Volumes. By Matilda Potter.
(London: Printed for J. Souter, by G. Sidney, 1813). 2 vols. 12mo.
[Brown, vol. 2]


1814

(37)
ANON.
The Irish Girl. A Religious Tale. By the Author of Cœlebs Married.
(London: Published by George Walker, 1814). 1 vol. 12mo.
* Frontispiece, ‘The Irish Girl Found’, dated at foot, 12 Aug 1814.
[Brown, vol. 1]

(38)
GAMBLE, John.
Sarsfield: Or Wanderings of Youth: An Irish Tale. By John Gamble, Esq. Strabane; Author of Sketches, &c. in Ireland. In Three Volumes.
(London: Printed for C. Cradock and W. Joy; Doig and Stirling, Edinburgh; M. Keene, Dublin; and S. Archer, Belfast, 1814). 3 vols. 12mo.
[Brown, vol. 1]

(39)
LEADBE[A]TER, Mary and SHAKLETON, Elizabeth.
Tales for Cottagers, Accomodated [sic] to the Present Condition of the Irish Peasantry. By Mary Leadbetter, and Elizabeth Shakleton.
(Dublin: Printed by James Cumming & Co. Hibernia Press-Office, for John Cumming; and Gale, Curtis, and Fenner, London, 1814). 1 vol. 12mo.
[Brown, vol. 1]

(40)
MORGAN, Lady [Sydney] [née OWENSON, Sydney].
O’Donnel. A National Tale. By Lady Morgan, (Late Miss Owenson) Author of The Wild Irish Girl; Novice of St. Dominick, &c. In Three Volumes.
(London: Printed for Henry Colburn, and Sold by George Goldie, Edinburgh, and John Cumming, Dublin, 1814). 3 vols. 12mo.
* Dedication ‘to His Grace William Spencer Cavendish, Duke of Devonshire’, signed Sydney Morgan. Preface also signed Sydney Morgan, and dated 35, Kildare-Street, Dublin, 1 Mar 1814. Further edns: New edn. 1815; New York 1814; French trans., 1815 [as O’Donnel, ou l’Irlande (BN)]; German trans., 1823 [as O’Donnel, oder die Reise nach dem Riesendamm (RS)].
[Brown, vol. 1]

(41)
TORRENS, Robert.
The Victim of Intolerance; or, the Hermit of Killarney. A Catholic Tale. By Robert Torrens, Major in the Royal Marines.
(London: Printed for Gale, Curtis, and Fenner, 1814). 4 vols. 12mo.
* Dedication ‘to the People of Ireland’.
[Brown, vol. 1]


1815

(42)
[DOHERTY, Ann].
The Knight of the Glen. An Irish Romance. By the Author of The Castles of Wolfnorth and Monteagle, Ronaldsha, &c. In Two Volumes.
(London: Printed for G. Walker. Sold also by Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy; and J. Sutherland, Edinburgh, 1815). 2 vols. 12mo.

(43)
GAMBLE, John.
Howard; By John Gamble, Esq. Author of Irish Sketches, Sarsfield, &c. In Two Volumes.
(London: Printed for Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 1815). 2 vols. 12mo.
[Brown, vol. 1]


1816

(44)
[KELLY, Mrs].
The Matron of Erin: A National Tale. In Three Volumes.
(London: Published by Simpkin and Marshall; and by Richard Coyne, Dublin, 1816).
3 vols. 12mo.
* Mrs Kelly is to be distinguished from Mrs Isabella Kelly, afterwards Mrs Hedgeland.
[Brown, vol. 1]

(45)
[LAMB, Lady Caroline].
Glenarvon. In Three Volumes.
(London: Printed for Henry Colburn, 1816). 3 vols. 12mo.
* Further edns: Philadelphia 1816; French trans., 1819.


1817

(46)
EDGEWORTH, Maria.
Harrington, a Tale; and Ormond, a Tale. In Three Volumes. By Maria Edgeworth, Author of Comic Dramas, Tales of Fashionable Life, &c. &c.
(London: Printed for R. Hunter and Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 1817). 3 vols. 12mo.
* ‘To the Reader’ signed Richard Lovell Edgeworth, Edgeworth’s Town, 31 May 1817, followed by ‘Note.—He died a few days after he wrote this Preface—the 13th June, 1817’. Harrington fills vol. 1, Ormond vols. 2 and 3. Further edns: New York 1817; French trans., of ‘Harrington’ and of ‘Ormond’ 1817.
[Brown, vol. 1. Only Ormond is given an entry.]

(47)
[ENNIS, Alicia Margaret].
Memoirs of the Montague Family. In Three Volumes.
(London: Printed for Edmund Lloyd, by W. Clowes, 1817). 3 vols. 12mo.
Further edn: 1820 as Ireland; or, Memoirs of the Montague Family. This is a reissue. Apart from different t.ps. the texts are identical.
[Brown, vol. 1. No date given in Brown.]

(48)
GODWIN, William.
Mandeville. A Tale of the Seventeenth Century in England. By William Godwin. In Three Volumes.
(Edinburgh: Printed for Archibald Constable and Co. and Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, London, 1817). 3 vols. 12mo.
* Dedication to ‘the late John Philpot Curran’, dated 25 Oct 1817.
Further edns: New York 1818 [also Philadelphia 1818]; French trans., 1818.
[Brown, vol. 2]


1818

(49)
ANON.
Dunsany. An Irish Story.
(London: Printed for Sherwood, Neely, and Jones, 1818). 2 vols. 12mo.
* ‘List of Subscribers’ (136 names), vol. 1, pp. [iii]–x.
[Brown, vol. 1]

(50)
ANON.
Prodigious!!! Or, Childe Paddie in London. In Three Volumes.
(London: Printed for the Author, and Sold by Wm. Lindsell, 1818). 3 vols. 12mo.

(51)
[BRONTË, Patrick].
The Maid of Killarney; or, Albion and Flora: A Modern Tale; in Which Are Interwoven some Cursory Remarks on Religion and Politics.
(London: Published by Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy; Sold also by T. Inkersley, Bradford; Robinson and Co. Leeds, 1818). 1 vol. 12mo.
[Brown, vol. 1]

(52)
[GAMBLE, John].
Northern Irish Tales. In Two Volumes.
(London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1818). 2 vols. 12mo.
* 3 tales: ‘Stanley’, ‘Nelson’, and ‘Lesley’.
[Brown, vol. 1]

(53)
[HILLARY, Joseph].
The Parish Priest in Ireland. In Two Volumes.
(London: Printed for T. Hughes and W. Mathews, Cork, 1818). 2 vols. 12mo.
[Brown, vol. 1. Brown gives date as c. 1814.]

(54)
[MATURIN, Charles Robert].
Women; or, Pour et Contre. A Tale. By the Author of “Bertram,” &c. In Three Volumes.
(Edinburgh: Printed by James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co.; and Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, London, 1818). 3 vols. 12mo.
* Dedication ‘to the Right Honourable the Countess of Essex’. Preface, vol. 1, pp. [iii]–v, discusses the unpopularity of Maturin’s earlier fiction. Further edns: New York [also Philadelphia 1818]; French trans., 1818 [as Éva, ou amour et religion (BN)].
[Brown, vol. 1]

(55)
MORGAN, Lady [Sydney] [née OWENSON, Sydney].
Florence Macarthy: An Irish Tale. By Lady Morgan, Author of “France,” “O’Donnel,” &c. In Four Volumes.
(London: Printed for Henry Colburn, 1818). 4 vols. 12mo.
* Further edns: Baltimore 1819 [also New York 1819 and Philadelphia 1819]; French trans., 1819; German trans., 1821.
[Brown, vol. 1. Brown gives date as 1816.]

(56)
PECK, [Frances].
The Bard of the West; commonly Called Eman ac Knuck, or Ned of the Hills. An Irish Historical Romance, Founded on Facts of the Seventh Century. In Three Volumes. By Mrs. Peck, Author of the “Maid of Avon,” “Welch Peasant Boy,” Young Rosinière,” “Vaga,” &c.
(London: Published by Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, and John Cumming, Dublin, 1818). 3 vols. 12mo.
* Dedication ‘to His Royal Highness Prince Edward’, signed Frances Peck. ‘Argument’, vol. 1, pp. [3]–5, dated Dublin, 28 Nov 1818.
[Brown, vols 1 and 2. Different title given in Brown vol. 1: The Life and Acts of the Renowned and Chivalrous Edmund of Erin, Commonly Called Emun ac Knuck or Ned of the Hills. In vol. 2 the title is given as Emun ac Knuck, or Ned of the Hill [sic].]

(57)
PUZZLEBRAIN, Peregrine [pseud.]
Tales of My Landlady. Edited by Peregrine Puzzlebrain. Assistant to the Schoolmaster of Gandercleugh. In Three Volumes.
(London: Printed for M. Iley, 1818). 3 vols. 12mo.
[The first tale, ‘The Uses of Adversity’, is largely set in Ireland.]


1819

(58)
ANON.
The United Irishman, or the Fatal Effects of Credulity; a Tale Founded on Facts. In Two Volumes.
(Dublin: Printed for the Author, 1819). 2 vols. 12mo.
* Further edn: 1821 as The Cavern in the Wicklow Mountains, or Fate of the O’Brien Family. This is a reissue.
[Brown, vol. 1]

(59)
[PARNELL, William].
Maurice and Berghetta; or, the Priest of Rahery. A Tale.
(London: Printed for Rowland Hunter; and C. P. Archer, Dublin, 1819). 1 vol. 12mo.
* Dedication ‘to the Catholic Priesthood of Ireland’. Further edns: Boston 1820.
[Brown, vol. 1]

(60)
[RENNIE, James].
Saint Patrick: A National Tale of the Fifth Century. By an Antiquary. In Three Volumes.
(Edinburgh: Printed for Archibald Constable and Co. Edinburgh; Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, and Hurst, Robinson, and Company, London, 1819). 3 vols. 12mo.
* ‘The Author’s Personal Narrative. To be read either before or after the Tale, or not at all, as the Reader may incline’, vol. 1, pp. [i]–xlviii, dated ‘Stephen’s Green, Dublin, Nov. 2, 1818’.
[Brown, vol. 1. Brown lists as ‘Anonymous’.]

(61)
ST. CLAIR, Rosalia [pseud.].
The Son of O’Donnel. A Novel. In Three Volumes. By Rosalia St. Clair, Author of The Blind Beggar, &c. &c.
(London: Printed at the Minerva Press for A. K. Newman and Co., 1819). 3 vols. 12mo.

(62)
[SUTHERLAND, Alexander].
Redmond the Rebel; or, They Met at Waterloo. A Novel. In Three Volumes.
(London: Printed at the Minerva Press for A. K. Newman and Co., 1819). 3 vols. 12mo.
[Brown, vol. 1. Brown gives no plot description.]


1820

(63)
ENNIS, A[licia] M[argaret].
The Contested Election; or a Courtier’s Promises. In Three Volumes. Dedicated by Permission, to His Grace the Duke of Leinster, &c. &c. By A. M. Ennis, Author of Ireland, or the Montague Family.
(London: Printed at the Minerva Press for A. K. Newman and Co., 1820). 3 vols. 12mo.
* Dedication to the Duke of Leinster, signed Alicia Margaret Ennis, Grenville-Street, Mountjoy-Square, Dublin, Aug 1820.
[Brown, vol. 2]

(64)
MAC DONNELL, Eneas.
The Hermit of Glenconella; a Tale. By Eneas Mac Donnell.
(London: Printed for G. Cowie and Co., 1820). 1 vol. 12mo.
* Preface dated Rossbeg, near Westport, 26 Oct 1819.
[Brown, vol. 1]

(65)
[MATURIN, Charles Robert].
Melmoth the Wanderer: A Tale. By the Author of “Bertram,” &c. In Four Volumes.
(Edinburgh: Printed for Archibald Constable and Company, and Hurst, Robinson, and Co., London, 1820). 4 vols. 12mo.
* Dedication to the Marchioness of Abercorn. Preface dated Dublin, 31 Aug 1820.
Further edns: Boston 1821; French trans., 1821 [as L’Homme du mystère, ou histoire de Melmoth le voyageur (MLC); also as Melmoth, ou l’homme errant; German trans., 1821.
[Brown, vol. 1 mentions this work in his biographical sketch of Maturin, but does not offer a separate entry for the novel.]

(66)
[PURCELL, Mrs].
The Orientalist, or Electioneering In Ireland; a Tale, by Myself. In Two Volumes.
(London: Printed for Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy; J. Thomson & Co., Edinburgh; William Gribbin, Dublin; and Samuel Archer, Belfast, 1820). 2 vols. 12mo.
[Brown, vol. 1]

(67)
ROCHE, Regina Maria.
The Munster Cottage Boy. A Tale. In Four Volumes. By Regina Maria Roche, Author of The Children of the Abbey, Trecothick Bower, Monastery of St. Columb, &c. &c.
(London: Printed at the Minerva Press for A. K. Newman and Co., 1820). 4 vols. 12mo.
* Further edns: New York 1820; French trans., 1821.
[Brown, vol. 1]

(68)
[SUTHERLAND, Alexander].
St. Kathleen; or, the Rock of Dunnismoyle. A Novel. In Four Volumes. By the Author of Redmond the Rebel.
(London: Printed at the Minerva Press for A. K. Newman and Co., 1820). 4 vols. 12mo.
[Brown, vol. 1]


1821

(69)
ANON.
National Feeling; or, the History of Fitzsimon; a Novel. With Historical and Political Remarks. In Two Volumes. By an Irishman.
(Dublin: Printed for the Author, by A. O’Neil, 1821). 2 vols. 12mo.
* ‘To you, my Countrymen’, dated 16 Mar 1821.
[Brown, vol. 1]

(70)
[?EGAN, Pierce].
Real Life in Ireland; or, the Day and Night Scenes, Rovings, Rambles, and Sprees, Bulls, Blunders, Bodderation and Blarney, of Brian Boru, Esq. and His Elegant Friend Sir Shawn O’Dogherty. Exhibiting a Real Picture of Characters, Manners, &c. in High and Low Life, in Dublin and Various Parts of Ireland. Embellished with Humorous Coloured Engravings, from Original Designs by the Most Eminent Artists. By a Real Paddy.
(London: Printed by B. Bensley. Published by Jones and Co. and J. L. Marks, 1821). 1 vol. 8vo.
[Brown, vol. 1]

(71)
KELLY, Mrs.
The Fatalists; or, Records of 1814 and 1815. A Novel. In Five Volumes. By Mrs. Kelly, Author of The Matron of Erin, &c.
(London: Printed for A. K. Newman and Co., 1821). 5 vols. 12mo.

(72)
[KELLY, Richard N.].
De Renzey; or, the Man of Sorrow. Written by Himself, Edited by His Nephew. In Three Volumes.
(London: Printed for W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 1821). 3 vols. 12mo.
* Dedication to Lady Morgan, signed Richard N. Kelly, Dublin, 18 Jan 1821.

(73)
MARSHAL, Thomas Henry.
The Irish Necromancer; or, Deer Park. A Novel. In Three Volumes. By Thomas Henry Marshal.
(London: Printed for A. K. Newman and Co., 1821). 3 vols. 12mo.
* Further edns: French trans., 1824; German trans., 1824 [as Der irländische Schwarzkünstler und die Giftmischerin (RS)].
[Brown, vol. 1. No date given in Brown.]


1822

(74)
[HARDING, Anne Raikes].
The Refugees, an Irish Tale. By the Author of Correction, Decision, &c. &c. In Three Volumes.
(London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1822). 3 vols. 12mo.
* Further edn: French trans., 1830 [as Les Réfugies, histoire irlandaise, par Mrs Sinclair].
[Brown, vol. 1]


1823

(75)
GAMBLE, John.
Charlton, or Scenes in the North of Ireland; A Tale. In Three Volumes. By John Gamble, Esq. Author of “Irish Sketches,” “Sarsfield,” “Howard,” &c. &c. &c.
(London: Printed for Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 1823). 3 vols. 12mo.
[Brown, vol. 1]

(76)
LEFANU, [Alicia].
Tales of a Tourist. Containing The Outlaw, and Fashionable Connexions. In Four Volumes. By Miss Lefanu, Author of Strathallan, Leolin Abbey, Helen Monteagle, &c.
(London: Printed for A. K. Newman and Co., 1823). 4 vols. 12mo.
* The first tale, ‘The Outlaw’, is set in Ireland.

(77)
ROCHE, Regina Maria.
Bridal of Dunamore; and Lost and Won. Two Tales. By Regina Maria Roche, Author of The Children of the Abbey, Trecothick Bower, Maid of the Hamlet, Munster Cottage Boy, Vicar of Lansdown, Houses of Osma and Almeria, &c. In Three Volumes.
(London: Printed for A. K. Newman and Co., 1823). 3 vols. 12mo.
* Further edn: French trans., 1824.
[Brown, vol. 1]


1824

(78)
ANON.
Caprice: Or Anecdotes of the Listowel Family. An Irish Novel, In Three Volumes, By an Unknown.
(London: Sherwood, Jones and Co., and C. P. Archer, Dublin, 1824). 3 vols. 12mo.
[Brown, vol. 1]

(79)
[MACHENRY, James].
The Insurgent Chief; or, O’Halloran. An Irish Historical Tale of 1798. In Three Volumes. By Solomon Secondsight, Author of The Wilderness, The Spectre of the Forest, &c.
(Philadelphia: Printed for H. C. Carey and I. Lea. London: Re-printed for A. K. Newman & Co., 1824). 3 vols. 12mo.
* Originally published Philadelphia 1824 as O’Halloran; or, the Insurgent Chief; an Irish Historical Tale of 1798. Further edns: Belfast 1847 as O’Halloran; or, the Insurgent Chief .
[Brown, vol. 1]

(80)
[MOORE, Thomas].
Memoirs of Captain Rock, the Celebrated Irish Chieftain, with some Account of His Ancestors. Written by Himself.
(London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1824). 1 vol. 12mo.
* Further edns: New York 1824; German trans., 1825.
[Brown, vol. 1]

(81)
ROCHE, Regina Maria.
The Tradition of the Castle; or, Scenes in the Emerald Isle. In Four Volumes. By Regina Maria Roche, Author of The Children of the Abbey, Vicar of Lansdown, Maid of the Hamlet, &c.
(London: Printed for A. K. Newman and Co., 1824). 4 vols. 12mo.
* Further edn: French trans., 1824.
[Brown, vol. 1]

(82)
[WHITTY, Michael James].
Tales of Irish Life, Illustrative of the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the People. With Designs by George Cruikshank.
(London: Published by J. Robins and Co., 1824). 2 vols. 8vo.
* Further edn: German trans., 1825.
[Brown, vol. 1]


1825

(83)
ANON.
The Adventurers; or, Scenes in Ireland, in the Reign of Elizabeth. In Three Volumes.
(London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1825). 3 vols. 12mo.
* This is one of four novels which are together given full reviews in ER (Feb 1826) under the page-top heading ‘Irish Novels’.
[Brown, vol. 1]

(84)
[BANIM, John and Michael].
Tales, by the O’Hara Family: Containing Crohoore of the Bill-Hook. The Fetches, and John Doe. In Three Volumes.
(London: Printed for W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 1825). 3 vols. 12mo.
* This is one of four novels which are together given full reviews in ER (Feb 1826) under the page-top heading ‘Irish Novels’. [1st series]. Further edns: Philadelphia 1827; German trans., of ‘John Doe’ [as Hauptmann Reh (RS)] 1828 and ‘Crohoore’ [as Der Zwerg, ein Irländisches Sittengemälde] 1828; French trans., of ‘Crohoore’ [as Croohore na bilhoge, ou les White boys] and ‘John Doe’ [as John Doe, ou le chef des rebelles (BN)] 1829.
[Brown, vol. 1]

(85)
[CROWE, Eyre Evans].
To-Day in Ireland. In Three Volumes.
(London: Printed for Charles Knight, 1825). 3 vols. 12mo.
* I The Carders; II The Carders; Connemara; III Old and New Light; The Toole’s Warning. This is one of four works of fiction which are together given full reviews in ER (Feb 1826) under the page-top heading ‘Irish Novels’. Further edns: French trans.of ‘The Carders’ and ‘Connemara’ 1830, and of ‘The Toole’s Warning’ [as La Fée de la famille O’Toole, ou le signal du départ] 1833.
[Brown, vol. 1]

(86)
HIGGINSON, Francis S.
Manderville; or, the Hibernian Chiliarch: A Tale. By Francis S. Higginson, R.N. Late Commander of His Majesty’s Cutter Lynx. In Two Volumes.
(London: Printed and published by Thomas Dolby, 1825). 2 vols. 12mo.

(87)
[MACHENRY, James].
The Hearts of Steel, an Irish Historical Tale of the Last Century. By the Author of “The Wilderness,” “O’Halloran,” &c. In Three Volumes.
(London: Printed for Wightman and Cramp, 1825). 3 vols. 12mo.
* Preface dated London, 15 July 1825. Further edns: Philadelphia 1825; French trans., 1830.
[Brown vol. 1]

(88)
[MAXWELL, William Hamilton].
O’Hara; or, 1798. In Two Volumes.
(London: Printed for J. Andrews; and Miliken, Dublin, 1825). 2 vols. 8vo.
* Dedication to the most noble the Marquess of Sligo, K.P., dated 1 June 1825. This is one of four novels which are together given full reviews in ER (Feb 1826) under the page-top heading ‘Irish Novels’.
[Brown vol. 1]

(89)
O’TARA, Mac-Erin [pseud.].
Thomas Fitz-Gerald the Lord of Offaley. A Romance of the Sixteenth Century. In Three Volumes. By Mac-Erin O’Tara, the Last of the Seanachies. Being the First of a Projected Series Illustrative of the History of Ireland.
(London: Printed for A. K. Newman and Co.; and Sold by John Cumming, Dublin, 1825). 3 vols. 12mo.
[Brown vol. 1. Brown lists as ‘Anonymous’, with date given as 1836.]

(90)
ROCHE, Regina Maria.
The Castle Chapel. A Romantic Tale. In Three Volumes. By Regina Maria Roche, Author of The Children of the Abbey; Bridal of Dunamore; Clermont; Discarded Son; Houses of Osma and Almeria; Munster Cottage Boy; Tradition of the Castle; Trecothick Bower; Maid of the Hamlet; Vicar of Lansdowne, &c.
(London: Printed for A. K. Newman and Co., 1825). 3 vols. 12mo.
* Further edn: French trans., 1825 [as La Chapelle du vieux château de Saint-Doulagh, ou les bandits de Newgate]; German trans. (based on the French trans.), 1827 [as Die Kapelle des alten Schlosses von Saint-Doulagh, oder die Banditen von Newgate (RS)].
[Brown vol. 1]


1826

(91)
[BANIM, John and Michael].
The Boyne Water, a Tale, By the O’Hara Family. Authors of Tales, Comprising Crohoore of the Bill-Hook, The Fetches, and John Doe. In Three Volumes.
(London: Printed for W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 1826). 3 vols. 12mo.
* Introductory letter dated Inismore, 2 Feb 1826 and signed ‘A. O’H.’. Further edn: French trans., 1829 [as La Bataille de la Boyne, ou Jacques II en Irlande].
[Brown vol. 1]

(92)
[BANIM, John and Michael].
Tales by the O’Hara Family. Second Series. Comprising The Nowlans, and Peter of the Castle. In Three Volumes.
(London: Henry Colburn, 1826). 3 vols. 12mo.
* Further edns: French trans., 1829 [separately as LApostat, ou la famille Nowlan (BN), and Padhré na moulh, ou le mendiant des ruines (BN)]; German trans., of ‘Peter of the Castle’ 1834; German trans., of ‘The Nowlans’ [as Das Haus Nowlan, oder Hang und Geschick. Ein irländisches Familiengemälde] 1835.
[Brown vol. 1]

(93)
PORTER, A[nna] M[aria].
Honor O’Hara. A Novel, In Three Volumes. By Miss A. M. Porter, Author of “The Hungarian Brothers,” “The Recluse of Norway,” &c. &c. &c.
(London: Printed for Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1826). 3 vols. 12mo.
* Prefatory notice dated Esher, Aug 1826. Further edns: New York 1827; French trans., 1827.
[Brown vol. 1]


1827

(94)
ANON.
Ellmer Castle; a Roman Catholic Story of the Nineteenth Century.
(Dublin: William Curry, jun. and Co.; Hamilton, Adams, and Co. J. Nisbet, and J. Hatchard and Son, London; William Oliphant, Waugh and Innes, and William Whyte and Co. Edinburgh, 1827). 1 vol. 12mo.
* Further edns: Boston 1833.
[Brown vol. 1]

(95)
ANON.
The Roman Catholic Priest.
(Dublin: William Curry, jun. and Co. Hamilton, Adams and Co. London; and W. Oliphant, Edinburgh, 1827). 1 vol. 18mo.
[Brown vol. 1]

(96)
[BUNBURY, Selina].
Cabin Conversations and Castle Scenes. An Irish Story. By the Author of “Early Recollections,” “A Visit To My Birth-Place,” &c. &c.
(London: James Nisbet, 1827). 1 vol. 18mo.
[Brown vol. 1]

(97)
[GRIFFIN, Gerald Joseph].
“Holland-Tide;” or, Munster Popular Tales.
(London: Printed for W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 1827). 1 vol. 12mo.
[Brown vol. 1]

(98)
[GRIFFIN, Gerald Joseph].
Tales of the Munster Festivals containing, Card Drawing; The Half Sir; and Suil Dhuv, the Coiner. By the Author of “Holland-Tide, or Irish Popular Tales.” In Three Volumes.
(London: Saunders and Otley, 1827). 3 vols. 12mo.
* Further edns: German trans., 1829 [as Suil Dhuv, der Falschmünzer und die Kartenschlägerin ].
[Brown vol. 1. Brown gives date as 1829.]

(99)
MORGAN, Lady [Sydney] [née OWENSON, Sydney].
The O’Briens and the O’Flahertys; a National Tale. By Lady Morgan. In Four Volumes.
(London: Henry Colburn, 1827). 4 vols. 12mo.
* Preface signed Sydney Morgan Kildare-Street, Dublin, 1 Oct 1827. Further edns: Philadelphia 1828; French trans., 1828; German trans., 1828.
[Brown vol. 1]


1828

(100)
ANON.
Edmund O’Hara, an Irish Tale; By the Author of “Ellmer Castle.”
(Dublin: William Curry, jun. and Co., 1828). 1 vol. 12mo.
[Brown vol. 1]

(101)
[BANIM, John].
The Anglo-Irish of the Nineteenth Century. A Novel. In Three Volumes.
(London: Henry Colburn, 1828). 3 vols. 12mo.
* Further edns: French trans., 1829.
[Brown vol. 1]

(102)
[BANIM, John and Michael].
The Croppy; a Tale of 1798. By the Authors of “The O’Hara Tales,” “The Nowlans,” and “The Boyne Water.” In Three Volumes.
(London: Henry Colburn, 1828). 3 vols. 12mo.
* Dedication ‘to Sheffield Grace, Esq, F.S.A. &c.’, signed ‘The O’Hara Family’.
Further edns: Philadelphia 1839; French trans., 1833.
[Brown vol. 1]

(103)
[BUNBURY, Selina].
The Abbey of Innismoyle: A Story of Another Century. By the Author of “Early Recollections,” “A Visit To My Birth-Place,” &c.
(Dublin: William Curry, jun. and Co., 1828). 1 vol. 12mo.
[Brown vol. 1]

(104)
[DERENZY, Margaret G.].
The Old Irish Knight: A Milesian Tale of the Fifth Century. By the Author of “A Whisper to a Newly-Married Pair,” “Parnassian Geography,” &c.
(London: Printed for Poole and Edwards, 1828). 1 vol. 12mo.
[Brown vol. 1]


1829

(105)
ANON.
The Davenels; or, a Campaign of Fashion in Dublin. In Two Volumes.
(London: Henry Colburn, 1829). 2 vols. 12mo.
* Dedication to His Grace the Duke of Wellington.
[Brown vol. 1]

(106)
[CARLETON, William].
Father Butler. The Lough Dearg Pilgrim. Being Sketches of Irish Manners.
(Dublin: William Curry, jun. and Co., 1829). 1 vol. 12mo.
* ‘Notice to the Reader’, dated 20 Feb 1829, stating that the original was published in a magazine. Further edns: Philadelphia 1839.
[Brown vol. 1]

(107)
CROKER, T[homas] Crofton.
Legends of the Lakes; or, Sayings and Doings at Killarney. Collected chiefly from the Manuscripts of R. Adolphus Lynch, Esq. H.P. King’s German Legion. By T. Crofton Croker.
(London: John Ebers and Co., 1829). 2 vols. 8vo.
* Dedication ‘to Miss Edgeworth, of Edgeworth’s Town, Ireland’. Vol. 2, pp. [245]–247 contains ‘Topographical Index’.
[Brown vol. 1]

(108)
[CROWE, Eyre Evans].
Yesterday in Ireland. By the Author of “To Day in Ireland.” In Three Vols.
(London: Henry Colburn, 1829). 3 vols. 12mo.
* I Corramahon; II Corramahon. The Northerns of 1798; III Corramahon. The Northerns of 1798. Dedication to the Marquis of Lansdowne. Further edn: New York 1829.
[Brown vol. 1]

(109)
[CRUMPE, Miss M. G. T.].
Geraldine of Desmond, or Ireland in the Reign of Elizabeth. An Historical Romance. In Three Volumes.
(London: Henry Colburn, 1829). 3 vols. 12mo.
* Dedication to Thomas Moore, Esq., dated Welbeck Street, Cavendish Square, 1 May 1829.
[Brown vol. 1]

(110)
[BUNBURY, Selina].
My Foster Brother.
(Dublin: R. M. Tims; Houlston and Son; Hamilton and Adams; J. Nesbitt; Hatchard and Son, London; W. Oliphant; Waugh and Innes, Edinburgh; and Chalmers and Collins, Glasgow, 1829). 1 vol. 12mo.
[Brown vol. 1. Brown gives date as 1827, 2nd edn 1833.]

(111)
[GRIFFIN, Gerald Joseph].
The Collegians. In Three Volumes.
(London: Saunders and Otley, 1829). 3 vols. 12mo.
* Half-titles read: ‘A Second Series of Tales of the Munster Festivals.’ Further edns: New York 1829; German trans., 1848.
[Brown vol. 1. Brown gives date as 1828]

(112)
[GRIFFIN, Gerald Joseph].
The Rivals. Tracy’s Ambition. By the Author of “The Collegians.” In Three Volumes.
(London: Saunders and Otley, 1829). 3 vols. 12mo.
* Half-titles read ‘Third Series of Tales of the Munster Festivals.’ Further edns: New York 1830.
[Brown vol. 1. Brown gives date as 1832]

(113)
HALL, [Anna Maria].
Sketches of Irish Character. By Mrs. S. C. Hall.
(London: Frederick Westley, and A. H. Davis, 1829). 2 vols. 8vo.
* ‘Introduction’ addressed to ‘my dear Miss Mitford’. 2nd series (1 vol.) published in 1831. Further edn: New York 1829.
[Brown vol. 1]

(114)
[TONNA], Charlotte Elizabeth.
The Rockite, an Irish Story. By Charlotte Elizabeth, Author of Osric, The System, Consistency, &c. &c.
(London: James Nisbet, 1829). 1 vol. 12mo.
* Dedication ‘to Lord Mount Sandford’. Further edns: New York 1844.
[Brown vol. 1]