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The Publication
of Irish Novels and Novelettes, 1750–1829
A
Footnote on Irish Gothic Fiction
Rolf Loeber and
Magda Stouthamer-Loeber
The economic and social welfare of a country
is often directly related to its literary output. The periodical,
the Dublin Magazine, captured this well in its issue
of February of 1820, when it stated that:
Acute inquirers into the rise, progress,
and decline of empires have asserted, that literary productions
are a certain criterion, by which to judge of the improvement
and prosperity of a state [.] Previous to the year 1800, printing
flourished in Ireland [.] sufficiently to afford us native
productions [.] [but since then] printing presses are no longer
used in Ireland, except for the use of newspapers, or parish
and county documents [.] [In its stead], Minerva Presses,
vending every species of pernicious productions, will rise
on the ruins of the honourable and independent publishers[.]
[ 1]
Although this outcry may appear sympathetic,
it refers to a publishing industry which before 1800 was built
on the piracy of books published in England and on the continent,
and only had a narrow base of producing original productions
by Irish authors. The London-based Minerva Press, although derided
here, was the most successful publishing house of fiction in
England during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
Among all forces
that affected the decline of the Irish publishing and printing
industry at the beginning of the nineteenth century, two pivotal
events stand out: the 1798 rebellion, and the Act of the Union
between England and Ireland three years later. The rebellion
directly or indirectly involved Dublin printers and publishers,
and resulted in the banishment of many individuals working in
these professions. One of the consequences of the Union was
the extension of English copyright law to Ireland, thereby curtailing
Irish printers' and publishers' profitable pirating of English
books. The impact of these events, although considered in some
literary and bibliographical sources, remains understudied largely
because of the unavailability of comprehensive, printed lists
of publications of the period. The main goal of this essay is
to examine the production of original novels during the period
1750 to 1829 in order to compare the impact of the 1798 rebellion
and the Union on the publication of original fiction in Ireland.
[2]
Use will be made of our guide to Irish fiction compiled over
the past twelve years to document the development of original
Irish novels between 1650 and 1900. [3]
This essay challenges prior notions offered by scholars that
these events crushed the Dublin publishing industry. Also, this
essay focuses on a neglected area in Irish literary studies,
[4]
the publication of novelettes (a form of short fiction), [5]
mostly published during the first decades of the nineteenth
century. Another objective of this paper is to examine Irish
novelettes of that time as a hitherto unrecognised transitional
phase between eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Irish Gothic
novels. [6]
Novelettes were produced by a handful of the new generation
of Dublin publishers, who set out upon a new course in the sale
of low-cost fiction, catering to a wider reading public than
those who had been able to purchase fiction before the Union.
[7]
Novelettes
The study of novelettes is neglected partly
because they usually can not to be found in most major libraries,
and partly because their soft covers contributed to their low
survival rate. [8]
Also, novelettes were usually not held in the major circulating
libraries in Dublin [9]
and were typically not reviewed in the periodical literature.
As a consequence, novelettes tended to remain obscure even at
their time of publication.
Novelettes differed from chapbooks in size,
price, number of pages, originality, and often in contents.
Typically, novelettes were larger in size than chapbooks (novelettes
measured about 9 x 14cm, compared to approximately 10-10.5 x
16-17cm for chapbooks) and were closer to the size of eighteenth
century novels published In Ireland. [10]
Novelettes, in contrast to novels however, were much shorter
and usually came in one of two types of lengths: thirty-six
or seventy-two stitched pages. The shorter version of novelettes
usually cost 6d, while the long version cost one shilling. The
price of a long novelette was about one fourth the cost of a
novel, but twelve times more expensive than the price of an
average chapbook. Novelettes typically consisted of short single
tales (although sometimes more than one tale was included),
and were published independently rather than as part of a bundle
of stories or a triple-decker. Many novelettes were potboilers
of novels published in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
or were based on plays; [11]
in contrast, almost all non-religious chapbooks consisted of
reprints of tales and romances often dating back to medieval
times. Unlike novels, which were usually illustrated only when
reprinted, novelettes at their first printing were illustrated
with a frontispiece representing a terrifying or crucial scene
from the narrative. [12]
The Publication
of Original Novels in Ireland Prior to the Union
The emergence of novelettes can be understood
best in the context of the publication of novels. Figure 1 (below)
shows the publication of original fiction in Dublin between
1750 and 1829. [13]
The 1750s and 1760s combined saw the publication of twenty-eight
original Irish novels, but this was followed by a decrease during
the 1770s. This decrease probably was caused by economic factors,
which also affected the publishing industry in London during
the period 1775 to 1783. [14]
The number of new novels published in Dublin increased to twenty
for the decade of 1780-89, but dropped during the 1790s. In
total, sixty-five titles of original Irish fiction were published
between 1750 and 1799 (excluding a small number of works published
in Cork). The numbers are small compared to all fiction published
in London, where 1,846 original novels were published during
that period. [15]
Following the Union, the number of new novels published during
the first decade of the nineteenth century remained low, but
increased subsequently. In total, fifty original fiction titles
were published in Dublin between 1800 and 1829. This number
is a very modest number, especially when compared to Irish fiction
appearing in London. Richard Cole correctly concludes that Irish
authors already in the eighteenth century 'took their works
to London to be published, a choice to be continued by Irish
writers throughout the nineteenth century'. [16]
During the second half of the eighteenth century, the publication
of original works of fiction was only a small part of the Dublin
publishers' work, which was dominated by the unauthorised republication
English and French works. For example, between 1770 and
1799, 459 mostly English novels were reprinted in Dublin, compared
to thirty-seven works of original fiction (that is, only 7.5%).
[17]

Fig 1. Original
Novels and Reprints of Novelettes Published in Dublin, 1750–1829
Literary historians
have commented on Dublin publishers' over-reliance on pirated
work without sufficient cultivation, encouragement, and payment
for Irish authors to publish in Ireland. [18]
The poet William Preston wrote in 1793 that '[a] striking proof
of the little esteem in which letters are held in this country,
is that the legislation has never condescended to bestow a thought
or care on them; and that we are, to this hour, without any
statute for the protection of literary property in Ireland'.
[19]
Although accurate, the danger of works by Irish authors published
in Ireland being pirated there appears to have been minimal.
Mary Pollard, after extensively studying Dublin publishing practices,
concludes that the copyright of Irish authors publishing in
Ireland was 'respected as to make the piracy of original Dublin
copy a rarity'. [20]
Also, one of the hallmarks of piracy, the competing publications
of different publishers of the same work in the same year, did
not apply to works by resident Irish authors. The issue of copyright
infringement probably was much more a problem for Irish authors
resident in England, whose work was primarily published in London.
Judging from the many, probably unauthorised reprints in Dublin
by such authors as Oliver Goldsmith and Frances Sheridan, it
is likely that copyright infringements particularly applied
to those Irish authors, who were resident in England and published
in that country. [21]
In contrast, the copyright of the works of mostly resident Irish
authors such as Maria Edgeworth, even though almost all published
in London, was respected in Dublin. (This does not appear to
have been the case, however, for reprints of their works published
in France and the US.)
Nowadays, most
of the titles of original novels published in Dublin in the
second half of the eighteenth century are little known. An example
is the anonymous The History of Charlotte Villars, attributed
to Isaac Mukins, a graduate of Trinity College, and published
in 1756. It consists of a picaresque, historical story set in
Ireland, London, and France, during the time of William III.
Long before Maria Edgeworth wrote Castle Rackrent (London,
1800), another Irish regional novel appeared anonymously (but
ascribed to a Daniel Marlay or Marley): The History of Mr
Charles Fitzgerald and Miss Sarah Stapleton (Dublin, 1770),
set in Co. Westmeath. Remarkably, almost one in five (18%) of
the titles of original novels published in Dublin between 1750
and 1799 are known only from advertisements or reviews and,
despite extensive searches, are not known to have survived.
Most of these
eighteenth-century Irish novels were published anonymously.
In the case where the sex of the author can be identified, about
equal numbers were men and women authors, but many more males
than females are identified by name. Many of the female authors
are identified by the term 'a lady'. [22]
The genre of novels varied much during the second half of the
eighteenth century. Initially, many consisted of adventure stories
involving military men or criminals-for instance, George Wollaston's
The Life and History of a Pilgrim (Dublin, 1753). Subsequently,
novels dealing with love and the social lives of women prevailed-twenty-two
novels, such as The Dénouement: Or, History of Lady Louisa
Wingrove, by 'a Lady' (Dublin, 1781). Several new sub-genres
emerged such as historical fiction-for instance, Thomas Leland's
Longsword, Earl of Salisbury. An Historical Romance (Dublin,
1762; London, 1762)-and Gothic novels, discussed below. The
publication of novels in Dublin in this period often did not
bring financial rewards: about one in five of original Dublin
novels was published at the expense of the author rather than
the publisher (with the exception of the 1760s, when none were
published for the author). Moreover, none of the identified
authors appears to have published a second novel in Dublin;
instead, for several authors a Dublin publication served as
a stepping-stone toward a literary career in London.
A minority of
the eighteenth-century works of fiction published in Dublin
consisted of collections of brief stories, each about the size
of a novelette. As far as is known, however, these stories were
not sold separately, but are only known from collected works.
A representative example is Love in Several Shapes: Being
Eight Polite Novels, in a New and Elegant Taste, written
by a 'Lady' and published by James Hoey Junior in Dublin in
1760, which consisted of eight short stories. Occasionally,
the stories in these collections were explicitly called novelettes,
as was the case in the volume edited and partly written by the
Irish author, Elizabeth Griffith, entitled Novellettes, Selected
for the Use of Young Ladies and Gentlemen; Written by Dr Goldsmith,
and Mrs Griffith, &c. and Illustrated by Elegant Illustrations
(London, 1780), which contains sixteen stories. [23]
None of the eighteenth-century Irish productions included stories
based on Irish folk tales, and anthologies containing such stories
only began appearing in the 1820s. [24]
See, for instance, London: House of Commons (London,
1825).
The Impact
of the 1798 Rebellion and the 1801 Union on the Dublin Publishing
Industry of Novels
The 1798 rebellion and the Union of 1801 undermined
the Dublin publishing industry in two ways: the departure of
publishers and new legislation. [25]
The Union had an even more dramatic effect on the publishing
industry, as-for the first time-English copyright laws applied
to Ireland. The perception of disastrous change in the
publishing industry was clearly already present in the year
of the Union, when an article in the Dublin Walker's Hibernian
Magazine referred to the 'abolition' of printing in Ireland.
In an overly dramatic mood, it stated that after the Union,
'[n]o new works will ever be printed in Ireland'. [26]
R. C. Cole,
in reviewing all types of books published in the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries, concludes that the Union 'gave the
coupe de grace to the dying Irish reprint industry and
with it the Irish book trade in general. He stressed that 'the
periodicals for the most part ended too [resulting] in an absence
of intellectual fermentation. The reprint industry, the periodicals,
and intellectual exchange all flourished together'. [27]
This statement can be challenged and qualified on several grounds,
however: he does not question whether the publishers of novels
experienced the same fate; also, Cole does not explore the possibility
that as the publishing market changed, room might be created
for innovations in publishing, such as the sale of short and
cheaper fiction. Moreover, at least twenty-two new literary
periodicals were founded in Dublin between 1801 and 1829, albeit
many of them were short-lived. [28]
Several studies
by Phillips, Pollard, and Raven-although confirming the decay
of the publishing trade following the Union-also show that the
decay already had started during the 1790s and well before the
1798 rebellion. [29]
For example, Pollard identifies the large increase in duty on
paper imported from England to Ireland that took place in 1795,
and which deprived Irish reprints of their price advantage.
Phillips documents that, owing to many financial failures, the
number of booksellers in Dublin decreased in the 1790s. Similarly,
there was a substantial decrease in the number of printers working
in Dublin during that decade. [30]
However, bibliographical evidence shows that a large portion
of the publishing trade survived in the 1790s. Pollard demonstrates
that the recovery in the Dublin book trade was slow and that
the total number of booksellers, printers, stationers, and binders
known to have operated in 1793 dipped in the late 1790s and
early 1800s.
Figure 1 illustrates
that the production of original novels in Dublin during the
1790s and 1800s reached a record low, a decrease of 50% compared
to the level in the preceding decade. Part of this decrease
resulted from transitions in publishing houses. Biographical
details of those publishers who were most involved in the publication
of original Irish fiction in the period 1750-99 show that some
of the publishers of novels died prior to the change of century.
For example, Dillon Chamberlaine, who had been 'remarkable for
his publication of first or early editions of well-received
novels', died in 1780. Another such publisher, Stephen Colbert,
died in 1786, while seven years later the bookseller and auctioneer
Christopher Jackson closed his business. Another publisher and
lender of novels was Thomas Jackson, who claimed in 1786 to
have the largest circulating library in Dublin. He co-published
Owenson's St Clair in 1803, but is not listed in Dublin
after 1807 and may have left Ireland for England. [31]
Several of the
Dublin publishers and printers at the end of the eighteenth
century were United Irishmen. When the 1798 rebellion failed
many of them were apprehended, banished, or fled to the United
States. Cole estimates that at least sixty-two Irish bookmen
left Ireland at the time of the Union. [32]
For example, John Chambers was banished to Scotland and afterwards
to Hamburg; subsequently, he left for France, then set off to
the United States in 1805, dying in New York in 1837. Patrick
Byrne, the publisher of Wolfe Tone and his friends' short novel,
Belmont Castle (Dublin, 1790), was a United Irishman;
he was apprehended in 1798, imprisoned and accused of high treason,
before gaining his freedom in 1800 and leaving for Philadelphia,
where he died in 1814 at the age of seventy-three. [33]
In summary, political exile and deaths reduced the number of
Dublin publishers of fiction around the time of the Union. This
would have not meant a great deal were it not for the fact that
these publishers were not replaced soon by a new generation
of publishers of fiction.
Another significant
factor may have played a role: it is well-known that after the
Union part of the reading public wealthy enough to purchase
novels left Dublin for London. [34]
Against this gloomy picture, however, should be considered the
fact that several publishers survived the transitions of the
rebellion and the Union. One of them is the United Irishman
and Catholic, Richard Cross, who continued to publish chapbooks
well into the early decades of the nineteenth century. [35]
Another publisher, Bennett Dugdale, who co-published novels
with other Dublin publishers during the late eighteenth century,
also published religious chapbooks for Protestant organisations.
[36]
As will be shown, he continued to publish well into the first
decades of the nineteenth century.
Factors that
impeded publishing in Dublin, however, appear not to have operated
in Cork. During the 1790s and 1800s, while the Dublin publishing
industry of fiction experienced a substantial decrease, Cork
experienced a modest increase in the publication of novels.
[37]
Thirteen works of original fiction were published in Cork between
1788 and 1810. The most productive publisher during this period
was John Connor, who had commercial contacts with the Minerva
Press in London. Connor differed from most Dublin publishers
in his patronage of several beginning authors (such as Mrs Creech,
Edward Holland, and Joseph Hillary); and the present authors
have not been able to document any Dublin publisher in the three
decades following 1790 who sponsored as many authors as Connor
did. Not surprisingly, several of Connor's authors came from
Munster: this can be deduced from known biographical details
(Anna Milliken, Regina Maria Roche), addresses (Edward Holland
was from Kanturk, Co. Cork), or from subscription lists (Mrs
Creech and Sophia Briscoe). All of these authors' works were
full novels, and novelettes do not appear to have been published
in Cork or elsewhere in Ireland during this period.
Irish Novelettes
Published in Dublin and London
Novelettes came in two broad categories: sensational
adventure stories and Gothic fiction. The first category consists
of adventure stories in foreign countries, while the second
comprises Gothic stories, often derived and summarised from
mainstream Gothic novels. In either format, the setting of the
stories in novelettes was rarely Ireland, but more often Southern
Europe or exotic places and countries. The Gothic novelettes
are important in that they represent a little-known development
of Gothic themes. Frederick S. Frank characterises them as 'down
the corridor of an unrestrained supernatural and towards the
absolute horror of horrors', more often the mode of M. G. Lewis's
The Monk (1796) rather than in the tradition of Ann Radcliffe's
The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794). [38]
The period between
1800 and 1815 saw nine novelettes of original Irish fiction
published in London and another two in Dublin by Holmes and
Charles, and Martin, respectively (Table 1, in Section II).
An example is The Castle of Savina; or, the Irishman in Italy.
A Tale (London, [c.1807]), which was subsequently
serialised in an Irish provincial periodical, the Weekly
Selector, or Sligo Miscellaneous Magazine in 1812. [39]
Whereas the authorship
of most Irish novelettes is not known, one Irish author, John
Corry, much developed this genre in London. [40]
Starting in 1782, he published at least twenty novelettes. A
typical example is his Arthur and Mary; or, the Fortunate
Fugitives (London, [1803]): it counts a mere thirty-six
pages and is set in Ulster after the 1798 rebellion. Some of
the titles of Corry's tales hide their Irish contents: for instance,
The Vale of Clywd; or, the Pleasures of Retirement. A Welch
Tale (London, [c.1825]) has as its main character
Thomas Conolly, whose father was a farmer in the vicinity of
Limerick. Another author of an 'Irish' novelette is Henry Vincent,
whose The Irish Assassin; or, the Misfortunes of the Family
of O'Donnell (London, [1800?]) consists of twenty-eight
pages illustrated by two murderous scenes (Figure 2).
![Fig. 2. Henry Vincent, The Irish Assassin; or, the Misfortunes of the Family of O’Donnell (London: Thomas Tegg, [1800?])](../images/articles/cc10_01b.jpg)
Fig. 2.
Henry Vincent, The Irish Assassin; or, the Misfortunes of
the Family of O'Donnell (London: Thomas Tegg, [1800?])
New Dublin
Publishers after the Union: Arthur Neil and the Publication
of Novelettes
It is only during the 1820s that the publication
of original Irish fiction rises, when compared to the preceding
twenty years, increasing by a factor of two-and-a-half (Figure
1). The increase in publication of fiction was largely the result
of the influx of new publishers in Dublin, following a hiatus
of about twelve years after the 1801 Union. The first four individuals
who started publishing fiction in the 1810s were: Arthur O'Neil
(possibly from 1810 onward, and certainly by 1815), John Cumming
(1811 onward), Christopher M. Warren (1815 onward), and Richard
Moore Tims (1818 onward). [41]
They were followed in the 1820s by William Curry Jr. (1826 onward)
and Philip Dixon Hardy (1826 onward). Two more publishers appeared
on the Dublin scene in the 1830s and1840s: James Duffy (1835
onward), and James McGlashan (1846 onward). [42]
Of particular
interest for this essay is Arthur Neil, who initially operated
at Sommerstown near London, and later in London itself from
1799 onward. [43]
Neil was a printer who published at least twenty-seven novelettes
during that period (Table 2). [44]
Two thirds of the works (66.7%) were original productions or
pot boilers of existing works. Examples of titles are: the anonymous
Adventure of Jemima Russell, Orphan (1799), William Burdett's
The Life and Exploits of Masong, commonly Called Three-Finger'd
Jack, the Terror Jamaica (1800), and several adventure stories,
including The Perilous Cavern; or, Banditti of the Pyrenees
(1803), and C. F. Barrett's Douglas Castle; or, the Cell
of Mystery. A Scottish Tale (1803). Neil's novelettes published
in London mostly consisted of thirty-six to seventy-two pages
(see Table 2).
Neil may have
been of Irish origin, and probably had an Irish interest before
establishing himself as a publisher and printer in Dublin. While
still in London, he published the anonymous Adelaide. An
Original East Indian Story around 1807; this story was originally
issued as a sixteen-part serial in the Dublin Sentimental
and Masonic Magazine in 1794-95. [45]
Sometime between 1810 and 1814, Neil moved to Dublin, where,
under the name O'Neil, he established the 'Minerva Printing
Office' at 19 Chancery Lane, an allusion to the largest London
publisher of novels, the Minerva Press in Leadenhall Street.
However, he operated on a much smaller scale and does not appear
to have had a commercial relationship with the Minerva Press.
In Dublin he published at least ten novelettes between 1814
and 1820 (Table 3). [46]
Compared to the novelettes which he published in London, his
Dublin editions were only of the shorter kind, comprising thirty-five
to forty pages. A representative example is the anonymous Mystery
of the Black Convent. An Interesting Spanish Tale, which
appeared in Dublin in 1814 (Figure 3). [47]
Neil appears to have discontinued publishing novelettes after
1820, because no record of such activity has been found. He
ventured into the publishing of the Dublin Weekly Independent
in 1822, however, and at least until 1825 he printed chapbooks
for the Kildare Place Society [48]
which, because of their large print-runs, must have been very
lucrative.

Fig. 3.
Anon., The Mystery of the Black Convent. An Interesting Spanish
Tale (Dublin: A. O'Neil, 1814)
Initially, it
was thought that Neil's novelettes published in Dublin were
largely original works, but almost all of them turned out to
be reprints. Whether Neil adhered to the tenets of the copyright
law is not clear, but this may have been easy for him, because
several of the titles were reprints of works he had printed
in London before, or may have been reissues of works printed
in London. Even after the Union, he was not alone in Dublin
reprinting volumes that had been published in London at an earlier
date. For example, J. Charles printed Lewis' The Monk
in Dublin in 1808 in two volumes 'for the Proprietor', who remains
unidentified. The same title appeared under an imprint by J.
Saunders in Waterford in 1796 in three volumes, but it carries
the watermark 1818, showing its illegal origin. [49]
These are only some of the instances by which Irish publishers
broke the rules of the new copyright law. In summary, Neil did
little to advance the re-emergence of original works of Irish
fiction and, between 1814 and 1820, concentrated on the publication
of reprints. Nevertheless, he made novelettes available in Ireland
at a relatively low cost for, presumably, a broad reading public.

Arthur Neil was
the only the Dublin publisher who independently published novelettes.
Only one other Dublin publisher, Bennett Dugdale, was also involved
in the production of novelettes, but published these in London
as a co-production with the London-based concern Tegg and Castleman.
Between 1802 and 1805, Tegg and Castleman co-published at least
nineteen novelettes in collaboration with Dugdale (Table 4).
These little volumes are likely to have been exported to Dublin
for distribution by Dugdale, but this remains to be documented.
Novels, Novelettes,
And The Development Of Irish Gothic Fiction
The Irish Gothic tradition has been studied
mostly starting with the works by the Revd Charles Maturin and
Sheridan Le Fanu. [50]
However, studies by Siobhan Kilfeather and I. C. Ross have highlighted
Gothic novels by eighteenth-century Irish authors. [51]
Table 5 places the Irish authors of Gothic fiction in the context
of the most well-known English Gothic novels published between
1750 and 1829, such as Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto
(1764), William Beckford's Vathek (1786), Ann Radcliffe's
The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), and M. G. Lewis' The
Monk (1796). Almost all of these key novels, with the exception
of Vathek, were soon republished in Dublin: The Castle
of Otranto in 1765, The Mysteries of Udolpho in 1794,
and The Monk in 1796, 1797, and 1808.
It is not widely
known that prior to the publication of Horace Walpole's The
Castle of Otranto, two Irish Gothic novels were published
in Dublin. The first, The Adventures of Miss Sophia Berkley,
by 'a young lady' (1760), is an epistolary novel set in England,
which includes an abduction and other 'Gothic' events of horror.
The second, the historian Thomas Leland's Longsword, Earl
of Salisbury (Dublin, 1762; London, 1762), is a historical
novel featuring the odious monk, Reginald, the sire of an unholy
brood of monastic fiends and baronial tyrants, who appear in
scenes of suspense and terror. [52]
The publication
of Gothic fiction by Irish authors accelerated between 1786
and 1805 when thirteen such works were published, mostly in
London, but a few in the Irish provinces, including Limerick,
Cork, and Belfast (Table 5). During this period, the key Irish
authors of Gothic fiction were mainly women, and include Anne
Fuller, Regina Maria Roche, Anne Burke, Mrs F. C. Patrick,
Anna Millikin, Catharine Selden, Marianne Kenley, and Sydney
Owenson (later Lady Morgan). Among the small number of male
authors in this sub-genre were James White, Stephen Cullen,
and Revd Luke Aylmer Conolly. Most of these authors-whether
male or female-appear to have published only a single Gothic
work. One of the exceptions was Regina Maria Roche, who published
numerous Gothic novels, including The Children of the Abbey
(1796), Clermont (1798), Nocturnal Visit (1800),
and The Houses of Osma and Almeria; or, Convent of St Ildefonso
(1810). (Clermont was one of the seven 'horrid' titles
mentioned by Jane Austen in her Northanger Abbey (1818).)
Very few novel-length
Gothic works were produced by Irish authors between 1800 and
1820, but several publishers in London and Dublin introduced
Gothic novelettes. Many of these Gothic novelettes published
during this period were potboilers of original works. Frank
comments:
Characteristically, the Gothic chapbook
strips away all of the complications of the immense Gothic
plot in order to jar the reader with supernatural shocks.
These little Gothics are shortened and plagiarised novels
devoted not to the story or to the moral but to spectacular
special effects. They are the natural literary link between
the unreadable four-volume Gothics of the Eighteenth Century
and the brief tale of terror of the later Nineteenth Century
with its uncanny climaxes and terminal links. [ 53]
The period 1800 through the 1820s represents
the heyday of novelettes in England, but also in Ireland,
where twelve novelettes were published (see Figure 1). A count
of 'chapbooks' (read novelettes) in the Sadleir-Black collection
of Gothic fiction published in the England and Ireland 'validates
that the national list for the macabre in literature reached
its apogee between 1810 and 1815 and extended well into the
Romantic movement'. [54]
From the works issued by novelette publishers, Neil's Gothic
fiction is of special interest here, with representative works
being C. F. Barrett's The Round Tower; or, the Mysterious
Witness: An Irish Legendary Tale of the Sixth Century
(London, 1803) and Allanrod; or, the Mysterious Freebooter.
An Interesting Gothic Tale (Dublin, 1820). Novelettes
seem to fallen out of fashion in the 1820s. During that decade,
only a few 'full-fledged' Irish Gothic novels written by Revd
Charles Maturin and Revd George Croly, and then, like in England,
almost disappeared from the scene. [55]
The genre slumbered until Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu started
publishing supernatural fiction from 1845 onwards, and found
its apogee with the horror of Bram Stoker's Dracula,
which was published in London in 1897.
Although uncertainty
exists about the religious orientation of some of the authors
of Irish Gothic fiction, most appear to have been Protestant.
Many of the Gothic novels are set in Southern European, Catholic
countries such as Italy or Spain-see, for instance, Catherine
Selden's Villa Nova (1805). Frank states that Italian
villainy is a common theme and that 'no tale of terror dared
to offer itself to the public without one Venetian poisoner,
Neapolitan seducer, or Sicilian revenger'. For example, William
Henry Ireland set his Gothic stories in Catholic environments,
and used his perception of 'the sinister historical legacy
of Catholicism to heighten the melodramatic sentimentality
of the Gothic and thereby arouse intense feelings of horror'.
[56]
Similar to Gothic fiction written by English authors, several
Irish works features nuns and monks of debatable trustworthiness
and appear decidedly anti-Catholic. For instance, The Mystery
of the Black Convent. An Interesting Spanish Tale, published
by Neil (under the name O'Neil) in Dublin in 1814,
and set in the Castilian monastery of St Lawrence at the time
of the Feast of Epiphany in 1140, is highly anti-Catholic
and is heavily plagiarised from Lewis' The Monk. These
anti-Catholic productions can be best seen in the context
of novels of Protestant propaganda. [57]
Not all Gothic
fiction set in Catholic settings, however, was anti-Catholic,
as is evident from, for example, Regina Maria Roche's novels.
Mary Tarr in her study on Catholicism in Gothic fiction,
pointed out that Catholic churches, monasteries, and convents
provide a mise-en-scčne for Gothic fiction with characters
acting in a spirit of 'medievalism':
Ecclesiastical ruins, passageways from
castles to convents, chapels, monasteries, convent cells,
monastic prisons, chambers of Inquisition, convent gardens,
burial vaults in the crypts of chapels or abbey churches-these
are the places for which characters in Gothic fiction have
special predilection. [ 58]
Additionally, the description of Catholic
rites provided suitable settings for Gothic scenes to induce
'melodramatic sentimentality' in readers. For instance, according
to Tarr: 'The Sacrament of Extreme Unction seems to have a
three-fold purpose in Gothic fiction: to afford an occasion
for candle carrying and hymn singing, to elicit sobs from
those attending the sick person, and to hasten the latter's
death!' [59]
Conclusion
Although the 1798 rebellion and the Union
of 1801 contributed to the decline of the Dublin publishing
and printing industry, its diminution had already set in earlier,
during the 1790s. The industry-judging at least from the publication
of novels and novelettes-was not wiped out, and new publishers
replaced old publishing houses from the 1810s, a process which
accelerated subsequently. The reprinting of English books
after the Union, although formally prohibited by newly installed
copyright laws, was still practiced on a small scale, but
it is not clear to what extent English authors or Irish authors
living in England were paid for this privilege.
This essay
shows that novelettes, often with a Gothic content, were published
mainly in Dublin during the 1810s, which represents a low
period of novel publishing in Ireland and England. [60]
Novelettes may have filled an economic niche by providing
cheap and more affordable alternatives to novels, at a time
when the Irish and the English economies were in a downturn,
following the financial and commercial crises caused by the
war with France. Thus, novelettes because of their lower expense
than novels, are likely to have appealed to a poorer segment
of the population than the novel-reading public. These hypotheses,
however, have several pitfalls. Firstly, Irish novels were
published in Dublin alongside the publication of novelettes,
even though the number of novels remained small during the
first decades of the nineteenth century. Secondly, few novelettes
of original fiction were published in Dublin, which undermines
the notion of a transition between novelettes and novels in
that city. Finally, there was a noticeable regional difference
in the impact of the 1798 rebellion and the Union on the fiction
markets of Dublin and Cork.
Many of these
novelettes may have been forerunners of the 'penny dreadfuls',
those very cheap and short illustrated stories which became
increasingly more popular in mid-nineteenth-century England.
[61]
Nevertheless, penny dreadfuls do not appear to have been published
in Ireland during the first half of the nineteenth century.
[62]
Novelettes also appear to have been outside of the mainstream
of the tradition of Irish short stories, either in the oral
or in the written form. Novelettes rarely dealt with Irish
situations, and if they did, their contents were far removed
from the Gaelic-inspired stories made popular from the late
1820s onward by such authors as William Carleton, Michael
James Whitty, and Samuel Lover. [63]
Gothic novelettes, like some of the novels on which they often
were based, were generally anti-Catholic in tone, describing
monastic and conventual abuses. At the same time, while many
Gothic novels were well-represented in Dublin circulating
libraries, the Gothic novelettes were not. [64]
Practically nothing is known about the reaction of officials
of the Irish Catholic Church to this type of fiction. When
convents started assembling circulating libraries for Roman
Catholic lay people, they appear to have excluded anti-Catholic
Gothic fiction, in either the novelette or novel format.
Novelettes
were pioneering because they routinely were published with
one engraved illustration (in contrast, chapbooks were illustrated
with woodcuts). In Ireland, their development should be seen
against the backdrop of other innovations. For instance, the
first triple-decker appeared in Dublin in 1820 (Mrs McNally's
Eccentricity, published in Dublin by John Cumming in
1820), as did the first book to be illustrated in its first,
as opposed to a later, edition (William Carleton's Father
Butler, published in Dublin by William Curry, Jr. &
Co. in 1829). Mass production of books was greatly enhanced
by the introduction of stereotype printing in 1813. [65]
Only from the 1820s onwards were novels published in Ireland
on a more commercial basis, without authors having to cover
the printing costs of their own works. [66]
Eventually, this transition heralded a new kind of Irish fiction,
independent of the Gothic and adventure stories published
in earlier days, and increasingly concerned with national
topics, such as Irish farmers' lives and ancient folklore,
and with recent contemporary events, among them the failed
1798 rebellion.
II
Table 1: Novelettes With
Irish Contents
(* indicates possibly original work)
| AUTHOR |
TITLE |
PLACE,
PUBLISHER, DATE,
PAGINATION |
LOCATION |
| [James Harrison]* |
The Exile of Ireland;
or, the Life, Voyages, Travels, and Wonderful Adventures
of Captain Winterfield, Who, after Many Successes
and Surprising Escapes in Europe and America with
English Forces, Became, at Last, a Distinguished
Rebel Chief in Ireland. |
London: J. Bailey, [1800?],
36pp. |
New York Public Library |
| Henry Vincent* |
The Irish Assassin;
or, the Misfortunes of the Family of O'Donnell. |
London: Thomas Tegg, [1800?],
28pp. |
Glasgow |
| [Anon.]* |
The Life and Travels
of James Tudor Owen: Who, amidst a Variety of Other
Interesting Particulars [.] Embarks from the Egyptian
Shore for Ireland, and There, during the Late War
with America, Gains an Ensigncy with the British
Forces against that Country [.] |
London: S. Fisher &
T. Hurst, 1802, 42pp. |
National Library of Ireland;
Library of Congress, DC |
| John Corry* |
Arthur and Mary; or,
the Fortunate Fugitives. |
London: B. Crosby &
Co. [and 8 others], [1803], 36pp. |
Univ. of Virginia Library,
VA |
| C. F. Barrett* |
The Round Tower; or,
the Mysterious Witness: An Irish Legendary Tale
of the Sixth Century. [67] |
London: Tegg & Castleman,
1803, 36pp. |
Trinity College, Dublin;
Univ. of Virginia Library, VA |
| [Anon.]* |
The Secret Memoirs of
Miss Sally Dawson: Otherwise Mrs. Sally M'Clane:
Otherwise Mrs. Sarah Mayne,-Widow [.] |
Dublin: Printed by Holmes
& Charles, 1805 (2nd edn), 50pp.
|
British Library |
| [C. Netterville?]* |
The Life and Extraordinary
Adventures of C. Netterville with the Various
Hardships and Vicissitudes that he Encountered both
by Sea and Land, until his Safe Return to Ireland;
his Native Country. |
Dublin: John Martin, [c.1806],
42pp. |
Trinity College, Dublin |
| [Edwin Dillon?]* |
A Singular Tale! or,
the Adventures of Edwin Dillon, a Young Irishman.
Interspersed with Pathetic and Comical Stories [.] |
London: Printed for the
author by E. Thomas, [1807], 36pp. |
Bodleian Library; Univ.
of Virginia Library, VA |
| [Anon.] |
The Castle of Savina;
or, the Irishman in Italy. A Tale. |
London: Anne Lemoine &
J. Roe, [1807], 60pp |
British Library; Bodleian
Library |
| [Anon]* |
The Bloody Hand; or,
the Fatal Cup, a Tale of Horror. [68] |
London: Stevens & Co.,
Kermish & Son, [c.1810], 24pp. |
British Library |
| John Corry* |
The Vale of Clywd; or,
the Pleasures of Retirement. A Welch Tale. |
London: B. Crosby &
Co. [and 8 others], [c.1825], 36pp. |
National Library of Ireland |

Table
2: Novelettes Published by A. Neil in Sommerstown and London
(* indicates possibly original work)
| AUTHOR |
TITLE |
DATE,
PAGINATION |
LOCATION |
| [Anon.]* |
Adventure of Jemima
Russell, Orphan [.] |
1799, 54pp. |
British Library |
| [Anon.]* |
Memoirs of Captain Shelburne
[.] to Which Is now Added, Henry and Charlotte;
or, the Fatal Shipwreck [.] |
1799 (2nd edn), 52pp. |
Birmingham-Jefferson Library,
AL; Indiana Library, IN |
| [Anon.]* |
Duncan; or, the Shade
of Gertrude. A Caledonian Tale. |
[1800?], 40pp. |
British Library; Univ.
of Cambridge Library |
| Thomas Barry* |
Narrative of the Singular
Adventures and Captivity of Mr. Thomas Barry, among
the Monsipi Indians, in the Unexplored Regions of
North America [.] |
1800, 60pp. |
Univ. of Virginia Library |
| [Anon.]* |
Edward and Ellen [.]
To Which is Added, The Unfortunate Father, or, the
History of Mr. Crawford. |
1800, 51pp. |
Princeton Univ. Library,
NJ |
| [Anon.] |
The Penitent Daughter,
or the History of Elinor Burgh. (translation) |
1800, 55pp. |
British Library |
| [Anon.]* |
The Interesting Adventures
of Tomar, the Celebrated Pirate of Algiers [.] |
1801, 36pp. |
British Library |
| W. Burdett* |
The Life and Exploits
of Masong, commonly Called Three-Finger'd Jack,
the Terror Jamaica [.] |
1802, 60pp. |
British Library |
| [Anon.]* |
Shrewtzer Castle; or,
the perfidious brother: A German romance. Including
the pathetic tale of Edmund's ghost. [69] |
1802, 66pp. |
Univ. of Cambridge Library;
Univ. of Virginia Library, VA; Bodleian Library |
| [Anon.] |
The Affecting History
of Louisa, the Wandering Maniac, or, "Lady of the
Hay-Stack;" [.] [70] |
1803, 36pp. |
British Library |
| Dennis Lawler* |
The Old Man of the Mountain;
or, Interesting History of Gorthmund the Cruel.
A Tale of the Twelfth Century. |
1803, 38pp. |
Yale Univ. Library |
| H. L. baron Coiffier de
Verseax |
The Black Knight: An
Historical Tale of the Eighth Century. (translation) |
1803, 65pp. |
Univ. of Cambridge Library |
| [Anon.] |
The Perilous Cavern;
or, Banditti of the Pyrenees [.] (translation
by C. F. Barrett) |
1803, 38pp. |
Bodleian Library |
| C. F. Barrett* |
Douglas Castle; or,
the Cell of Mystery. A Scottish Tale. [71] |
1803, 38pp. |
Univ. of Virginia Library,
VA |
| [Anon].* |
Torbolton Abbey: Or,
the Prophetic Vision: A Gothic Tale. |
1804, 38pp. |
Princeton Univ. Library,
NJ |
| [Anon.]* |
The English Fleet in
1342, or the Heroic Exploits of the Countess of
Montfort [.] |
1804, 61pp. |
U.S. Navy Dept. Library,
Naval History Center, DC |
| [Dennis Lawler]* |
Midnight Spells! or,
the Spirit of Saint Osmond: A Romance. |
[1804], 38pp. |
British Library, Bodleian
Library |
| [Anon.] |
Affecting Narrative
of the Deposition, Trial, and Execution of Louis
XVI: The Late Unfortunate King of France [.] |
1804, 62pp. |
Atheneum Library of Philadelphia |
| [Anon.]* |
Edmund Ironside, and
the Heroic Princess; or, the Invasion of England
by the Danes: An Historic Tale. |
1804, 38pp. |
Bodleian Library |
| P. Longueville* |
A New and Improved Edition
of The English Hermit; or, Surprising Adventures
of Philip Quarll [.] |
[1805?], 72pp. |
Bodleian Library |
| I. Crookenden* |
The Skeleton; or, the
Mysterious Discovery: A Gothic Romance. [72] |
1805, 38pp. |
Bodleian Library; Univ.
of Virginia Library, VA |
| [Anon.]* |
The Mystery of the Black
Convent. An Interesting Spanish Tale of the Eleventh
Century. |
[1805 or earlier], 36pp. |
Univ. of Virginia Library,
VA |
| [C. F. Barrett] |
The London Apprentice;
or, Singular Adventures of Henry and Zelima. An
Historical Tale. |
1805, 38pp. |
British Library |
| C. F. Barrett* |
Allanrod; or, the Mysterious
Freebooter. An Historical Tale of the Sixteenth
Century. |
[1806], 38pp. |
Bodleian Library; Harvard
College Library |
| [Anon.] |
Interesting History
of Crispin & Crispianus, the Royal Shoe-Makers.
Including the Loves and Singular Adventures of Sir
Hugh and the Fair Winifred [.] |
[1807?], 38pp. |
British Library |
| M. C. Springsguth* |
Imperial Clemency, or,
the Murderers Reprieved[.] An Interesting Tale. |
1808, 24pp. [73] |
Cleveland Public Library,
OH |
| [Anon.] |
Mortimer Castle, or
the Revengeful Barons: A Romance. |
1809, 28pp. |
Univ. of Carolina Library,
Chapel Hill, NC |

Table
3: Novelettes Printed by A. O'neil at the Minerva Printing
Office in Dublin
(* indicates possibly original work)
| AUTHOR |
TITLE |
DATE, PAGINATION |
LOCATION |
| [Anon.] |
The Life and
Adventures of that Notorious Robber and Assassin,
Socivizca [.] |
[1808-24], 35pp. |
Bodleian Library;
Univ. of Delaware Library |
| [Anon.]* |
Love in the
Brazils, or, the Honest Criminal: Exemplified in the
Interesting History of Henry Monkville and Zara D'Almaida. |
[1808-24], 40pp. |
Univ. of Delaware
Library |
| [C. F. Barrett] |
The London
Apprentice, or Singular Adventures of Henry &
Zelima: An Interesting Historical Tale. |
[1808-24], 36pp. |
British Library |
| [Anon.] |
The Mystery
of the Black Convent. An Interesting Spanish tale.
(First published by A. Neil in London in 1805 or earlier) |
1814, 36pp. |
Bodleian Library |
| [Anon.] |
The Affecting
History of Louisa, the Wandering Maniac, or, "Lady
of the hay-stack;" [.] (first published by A.
Neil in London in 1804) |
1814 (2nd edn),
36pp. |
Bodleian Library |
| [Anon.] |
The Interesting
Adventures of Tomar, thr [sic] Celebrated
Pirate of Algiers [.] (First published by A. Neil
in London in 1801) |
1816, 36pp. |
Bodleian Library |
| [Anon.] |
Perilous Cavern;
or, the Banditti of the Pyrenees [.] (First published
by A. Neil in London in 1803) |
1816, 35pp. |
Bodleian Library |
| [Anon.] |
The Accurate
History of Crispin and Crispianus, the Royal Shoemakers:
Together with Other Interesting Particulars Relative
to the Gentle Craft [.] (First published by A.
Neil in London in 1807?) |
1816, 36pp. |
British Library |
| [Dennis Lawler] |
Midnight Spells!
or, the Spirit of Saint Osmond. A Tale. (First
published by A. Neil in London in 1804) |
1819, 38pp. |
Bodleian Library |
| [C. F. Barrett] |
Allanrod; or,
the Mysterious Freebooter. An Interesting Gothic Tale. |
1820, 40pp. |
Northwestern Univ.
Library, IL |

Table 4: Novelettes
Published by Tegg and Castleman in London,
and Co-published by B. Dugdale in Dublin and by Others
Elsewhere [74]
| AUTHOR |
TITLE |
DATE,
PAGINATION |
LOCATION |
| [Anon.] |
Almagro &
Claude; or the Monastic Murder [.] |
n.d., 40pp. |
British Library,
Bodleian Library |
| [Anon.] |
The Veiled
Picture; or the Mysteries of Gorgono, the Appenine
Castle of Signor Androssi [.] |
[1802], 72pp. |
British Library |
| [C. F. Barrett] |
Mary Queen
of Scots, or the Royal Captive [.] |
[1803 or earlier],
36pp. |
British Library,
National Library of Scotland |
| [Anon.] |
Albani: Or
the Murderers of his Child [.] |
[1803], 72pp. |
British Library |
| [Anon.] |
Blanche and
Carlos; or the Constant Lovers [.] |
[1803], 72pp.
[75] |
British Library |
| [Anon.] |
De La Mark
and Constantia; or, Ancient Heroism. A Gothic Tale. |
[1803], 72pp. |
British Library |
| [Anon.] |
Domestic
Misery, or the Victim of Seduction, a Pathetic Tale
[.] |
[1803], 60pp. |
British Library |
| [Anon.] |
Father Innocent,
Abbot of the Capuchins; or, the Crimes of Cloisters. |
[1803], 72pp. |
British Library |
| [Anon.] |
Ildefonzo
& Alberoni, or Tales of Horrors |
[1803], 72pp. |
British Library |
| [Anon.] |
Lermos and
Rosa, or the Unfortunate Gipsey [.] |
[1803], 72pp. |
British Library |
| [Anon.] |
The Secret
Tribunal; or, the Court of Winceslaus. A Mysterious
Tale. |
[1803], 72pp. |
British Library |
| [Anon.] |
Ulric and
Gustavus, or the Unhappy Swedes; a Finland Tale. |
[1803], 35pp. |
British Library |
| [Anon.] |
Phantasmagoria,
or the Development of Magical Deception. |
[1803], 72pp. |
British Library |
| [Anon.] |
Ibraham,
the Grand Vizier, or Turkish Honour and European
Friendship [.] |
1804. [76] |
Bodleian Library |
| [Anon.] |
Lewis Tyrrell,
or, the Depraved Count [.] |
[1804], 72pp. |
British Library |
| [Anon.] |
Mathilda;
or the Adventures of an Orphan, an Interesting Tale. |
[1804], 72pp. |
British Library |
| [Anon.] |
Maximilian
and Selina; or, the Mysterious Abbot. A Flemish
Tale. |
[1804], 72pp. |
British Library |
| [Anon.] |
The Soldier's
Daughter; or the Fair Fugitive. A Pathetic Tale. |
[1804], 36pp. |
British Library |
| [Anon.] |
The Manoeuvres
of Don Pedro Antos, the Famous Swindler of Segovia
[.] |
[1805], 40pp. |
Bodleian
Library |

Table
5: The Development Of Irish Gothic Fiction In The Context
Of English Gothic Fiction
(key volumes in bold; Dublin imprints in bold)
| IMPRINT
DATE |
IRISH
AUTHOR, TITLE
(place of first publication) |
LOCATION |
ENGLISH
AUTHOR, TITLE
(key authors only, London) |
| 1760 |
'A Young Lady',
The Adventures of Miss Sophia Berkley (Dublin). |
British Library |
|
| 1762 |
T. Leland,
Longsword, Earl of Salisbury (London). |
Trinity College,
Dublin; British Library |
|
| 1764 |
|
|
H. Walpole,
The Castle of Otranto |
| 1779 |
[T. S. Whalley],
Edwy and Edilda (London).
Republished as Edwy and Edilda: A
Gothic Tale (Dublin, 1783). [77] |
University of
Virginia, VA |
|
| 1781 |
R. Jephson,
dramatised Castle of Otranto as The Count
of Narbonne. |
British Library |
|
| 1786 |
A. Fuller, Alan
Fitz-Osborne (Dublin). |
British Library |
W. Beckford,
Vathek |
| 1789 |
J. White, Earl
of Strongbow (London). |
Univ. of Cambridge
Library; Yale Univ. Library |
|
| 1793 |
R. M. Roche,
The Maid of the Hamlet (London) |
British Library
(2nd edn, 1800) |
|
| 1794 |
S. Cullen, The
Haunted Priory (London) |
British Library |
A. Radcliffe,
The Mysteries of Udolpho |
| 1796 |
A. Burke, The
Sorrows of Edith (London) |
Univ. of Virginia
Library |
M. G. Lewis,
The Monk |
| 1798 |
Mrs F. C. Patrick,
More Ghosts! (London) |
Harvard University
Library |
|
| 1801 |
'A Young Lady',
The Monastery of Gondolfo. A Romance (Limerick). |
Trinity College,
Dublin |
|
| 1802 |
A. Millikin,
Plantagenet; or, Secrets of the House of Anjou
(Cork) |
National Library
of Ireland; Trinity College, Dublin |
|
| 1804 |
C. Selden, Villa
Nova (Cork). |
Dublin Public
Library (Gilbert collection) |
|
| |
M. Kenley, The
Cottage of the Appenines or the Castle of Novina
(Belfast) |
British Library |
|
| |
C. R. Maturin,
The Fatal Revenge (London) |
British Library;
National Library of Ireland, Trinity College, Dublin |
|
| |
S. Owenson,
The Novice of St. Dominick (London) |
British Library;
National Library of Ireland, Trinity College, Dublin |
|
| 1805 |
L. Conolly,
The Friar's Tale; or, Memoirs of the Chevalier
Orsino (London) [78] |
British Library;
Univ. of Virginia Library |
|
| c.1814-20 |
Reprints
Of Novelettes Of Gothic Fiction (Dublin).
See Table 2. |
|
|
| 1820 |
C. R. Maturin,
Melmoth the Wanderer (London) |
British Library;
National Library of Ireland, Trinity College, Dublin |
|
| 1828 |
G. Croly, Salathiel
(London) |
Corvey Library |
|
Notes
1. A. M.'s note
to the Dublin Magazine; or, a General Repository of Philosophy,
Belles-Lettres, and Miscellaneous Information 1 (1820),
88-91.
2. The
term 'original Irish fiction' in this essays refers to those
works written by Irish authors or concerning Ireland and/or
the Irish, published for the first time rather than being reprinted.
The following criteria were used to identify original fiction:
known Irish author, Irish contents, and the presence of a Dublin
imprint without a London imprint prior to the Dublin publication.
Thus, the identification of original Irish fiction in many cases
partly rests on the absence of the same title published in London
or in another location. The present authors checked online databases
such as ESTC, NSTC, OCLC, RLIN, and many other primary sources.
Publication in the same year in Dublin and London has been conservatively
interpreted that the Dublin edition was a reprint of the London
one. However, the precise priority of publication is usually
impossible to establish because of lack of information of release
dates in the two cities. For this, and other reasons, it is
quite possible that future research will clarify and correct
works identified as 'original Irish novels'. Note that some
of the 'original' works were derivatives of or heavily inspired
by English or French precursors.
3. Rolf
Loeber and Magda Stouthamer-Loeber, A Guide to Irish Fiction
1650-1900: A Mirror of the Times (MS in preparation).
4. Most
literary studies have emphasised novels instead: see Peter Garside,
James Raven, and Rainer Schöwerling (gen. eds), The English
Novel 1770-1829: A Bibliographical Survey of Prose Fiction Published
in the British Isles, 2 vols (Oxford: OUP, 2000); and James
Raven, British Fiction 1750-1770. A Chronological Check-List
of Prose Fiction Printed in Britain and Ireland (Newark:
University of Delaware Press, 1987). Some scholars outside of
Ireland have examined novelettes (e.g. Frederick S. Frank,
The First Gothics. A Critical Guide to the English Gothic Novel
(New York: Garland, 1987)), but have not focused on novelettes
published in Ireland or written by Irish authors. Many of the
novelettes mentioned in this paper are not to be found in the
otherwise excellent survey by Frank.
5. The
OED defines a 'novelette' as 'a story of moderate length
having the characteristics of a novel'. The length of novelettes
varied, but they were distinct from novels (Frank, The First
Gothics, p. 31). Scholars disagree as to the word-length
of this kind of short fiction, with Robert D. Mayo setting a
minimum of 5,000 words for novelettes and 12,000 for novels,
while Boyce has taken 12,000 words as the dividing line between
short fiction and novels-both estimates are cited in Wendell
V. Harris, British Short Fiction in the Nineteenth Century:
A Literary and Bibliographic Guide (Detroit: Wayne State
University Press, 1979), p. 11.
6. Also
called by Frank, 'chapbook Gothic' and, referring to their blue
covers, 'bluebook Gothic' (Frank, The First Gothics,
pp. xxvi-xxvii and 433). Novelettes were not necessarily restricted
to Gothic fiction.
7. Not
discussed here are chapbooks published in Ireland, for which
see Rolf Loeber and Magda Stouthamer-Loeber, 'Fiction Available
to and Written for Cottagers and their Children' in The Experience
of Reading: Irish Historical Perspectives, edd. B. Cunningham
and M. Kennedy (Dublin: Rare Books Group, 1999), pp. 124-72.
8. An
exception is the Sadleir-Black collection at the University
of Virginia. Novelettes published in Ireland are not examined
in the otherwise excellent Print and Popular Culture in Ireland,
1750-1850 by Niall Ó Ciosáin (Basingstoke: Macmillan, and
New York: St Martin's Press, 1997).
9. Judging
from the following catalogues: Catalogue of Gerrard Tyrrells
Public Library, 11, Lower Sackville-Street (Dublin,
[1834]); Catalogue of the Library, 31, Lower Sackville-Street,
(near Carlisle Bridge,) J. Kempston, Proprietor (Dublin,
corrected to 1 Jan 1819); Catalogue of Hodgson's New Circulating
Library (Belfast, 1838). The lowest cost books sold by these
libraries were 3s or more. The Belfast Reading Society maintained
a library which was not intended for the reading of novels and
the selection was to exclude 'any common novel, or farce, or
other book of trivial amusement'-Mary Casteleyn, A History
of Literacy and Libraries in Ireland (Aldershot: Gower,
1984), p. 104.
10.
The present authors have not seen original bindings of
Irish novelettes of the period, because all copies known to
us have been rebound. However, novelettes originally were bound
in blue wrappers, and are thus sometimes termed bluebooks: see
Angela Koch, 'Gothic Bluebooks in the Princely Library of Corvey
and Beyond', Cardiff Corvey: Reading the Romantic Text
9 (Dec 2002). Online: Internet (20 Feb 2003): <http://www.cf.ac.uk/encap/corvey/articles/
cc09_n01.html>.
11.
For example, William Burdett's The Life and Exploits
of Three Finger'd Jack (Sommerstown: A. Neil, 1801) is associated
with the popular pantomimic drama of Obi; or, Three-Fingered
Jack, first performed at the Theatre-Royal, Haymarket, London,
on 5 July 1800, with the libretto by John Fawcett and the music
by Samuel Arnold. Also, the title of The Perilous Cavern
(London: A. Neil, 1803) stated that the story was performed
in Paris and at Astley's Amphitheater in London.
12.
Novelettes were also distinct from the didactic publications
of the Kildare Place Society in Dublin, an organisation established
to produce educational books from the mid-1810s onwards. The
books included short fiction of an educational type for juveniles
and adults. These publications usually consisted of either seventy-two
or 180 pages, which the committee thought would appeal to 'many
people in the lower class'. The cost of these volumes were in
the 6d-6˝d range, thus similar in price to the shorter novelettes-see
H. Hislop, 'The Kildare Place Society 1811-31; an Irish
Experiment in Popular Education' (unpublished doctoral thesis,
Trinity College, Dublin, 1990), pp. 208-10. Novelettes, in contrast
to the Kildare Place publications, focused more on fantastic
tales.
13.
The date 1750 was selected because very few original Irish novels
were being published in the earlier decades of the eighteenth
century (for example, the 1740s saw the publication of only
three works of fiction).
14.
James Raven, 'Historical Introduction: The Novel Comes of Age',
in The English Novel, I, 26-27.
15.
Raven, British Fiction, p. 8, Table 1; Raven, 'The Novel
Comes of Age', p. 26: Table 1 and p. 72: Table 11
(figures derived from these tables). Raven records that 13 and
19 'new' novels were published in Dublin for the two periods
(compared to 28 and 27 recorded by us for the same periods).
This difference can be attributed to different definitions as
to what constitutes a novel as well as more recently discovered
titles.
16.
Richard Cole, Irish Booksellers and English Writers 1740-1800
(London: Mansell, 1986), p. 195.
17.
Raven, 'The Novel Comes of Age', p. 37: Table 4.
18.
Cole, p. 86; Raven, 'The Novel Comes of Age', p. 37:
Table 4; C. Benson, 'Printers and Booksellers in Dublin 1800-1850',
in Spreading the Word: The Distribution Networks of Print,
1550-1850, edd. Robin Myers and Michael Harris (Winchester:
St Paul's Bibliographies, 1990), pp. 47-48.
19.
Cited in Patrick Fagan, A Georgian Celebration. Irish Poets
of the Eighteenth Century (Dublin: Branar, 1989), p. 147.
20.
Mary Pollard, Dublin's Trade in Books 1550-1800 (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1989), p. 224. 
21.
Cole, p. 94.
22.
Some of the identified Irish female authors who published in
Dublin include: Mrs Burke, E. Connor, Anne Fuller, and Tamary
Elizabeth Hurrell.
23.
See also her A Collection of Novels, Selected and
Revised by Mrs Griffith, 2 vols (London, 1777), which includes
Zayde by M. de Segrais, Oroonoko by Aphra Behn,
The Princess of Cleves by Elizabeth Griffith, and The
Fruitless Inquiry by Eliza Haywood.
24.
The earliest known example was the anonymously published
Royal Hibernian Tales; being a Collection of the Most Entertaining
Stories Now Extant, which first appeared in 1825 or earlier,
and which is only known from later copies.
25.
David Dickson, 'Death of a Capital? Dublin and the Consequences
of Union', in Two Capitals: London and Dublin 1500-1840,
edd. Peter Clark and Raymond Gillespie (Oxford and New York:
British Academy/OUP, 2001), p. 127.
26.
'Extracts Respecting the Present State of Ireland', Walker's
Hibernian Magazine (Dec 1801), 738-39; see also Kevin Whelan,
'The United Irishmen, the Enlightenment and Popular Culture',
in The United Irishmen. Republicanism, Radicalism, and Rebellion,
edd. David Dickson, et al. (Dublin: Lilliput Press, 1993), pp.
276-77; Cole, p. 6.
27.
Cole, pp. 152, 154-55,198.
28.
Judging from our records. A shorter list has been published
by Tom Clyde, Irish Literary Magazines. An Outline History
and Descriptive Bibliography (Dublin: Irish Academic Press,
2003).
29.
James W. Phillips, Printing and Bookselling in Dublin,
1670-1800 (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1998); Pollard,
Dublin's Trade in Books, pp. 150, 211: Graph 9; Raven,
'The Novel Comes of Age', p. 71.
30.
Phillips, pp. 28-29: Graph 1 and p. 39: Graph 2. Figure
1 shows a proportional larger decrease for master booksellers
than for irregular booksellers, while Figure 2 shows a proportional
larger decrease in irregular printers than for printer-booksellers.
31.
Mary Pollard, A Dictionary of Members of the Dublin
Book Trade, 1550-1800 (London: Bibliographical Society,
2000), pp. 98, 109-10, 310-11, 316; Cole, p. 33.
32.
Cole, p. 156.
33.
Pollard, Dictionary of Members of the Dublin Book
Trade, pp. 73-75, 100-101.
34.
Dickson, passim; Cole, p. 153.
35.
Loeber and Stouthamer-Loeber, passim.
36.
Bennett Dugdale, 1756-1826, was a prominent Methodist
and bookseller, printer, and stationer; an 1828 advertisement
of the auction of his stock refers to 60,000 volumes-J. Benson,
'The Dublin Book Trade 1801-1850' (Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation,
Trinity College, Dublin, 2000), p. 585; A Catalogue of the
Bradshaw Collection of Irish Books in the University Library,
Cambridge (Cambridge, 1916), I, 410-11.
37.
R. Loeber and M. Stouthamer-Loeber, 'John Connor: A Maverick
Cork Publisher of Literature', Eighteenth- Nineteenth-Century
Irish Fiction Newsletter 5 (May 1998)-issued for private
circulation.
38.
Frank, The First Gothics, pp. xxvi-xvii.
39.
Robert D. Mayo, (The English Novel in the Magazines,
1740-1815 (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1962),
p. 191. The serial was published in nos 16-23 (19 May 19-7 July
1812).
40.
It is not clear whether he is the same John Corry, who published
Odes and Elegies, Descriptive & Sentimental: With The
Patriot, a Poem in Newry in 1797.
41.
Ó Ciosáin, p. 57; Catalogue of the Bradshaw Collection,
I, 547.
42.
Catalogue of the Bradshaw Collection, III, 653.
The dates are approximate and may need to be revised in the
future when more detailed bibliographical information will become
available. The information on James Duffy is with thanks from
Clare Hutton (personal communication, June 1998).
43.
He can be identified as the printer A. O'Neil, who together
with W. Brown, published The Cabinet-Makers' London Book
of Prices (London, 1793), but he was subsequently known
as A. Neil (William B. Todd, A Directory of Printers and
Others in the Allied Trades, London and Vicinity 1800-1840 (London:
Printing Historical Society, 1972), p. 138; Catalogue of
the Bradshaw Collection, I, 515). The last publication
by A. Neil at his London address is his Imperial Clemency
(London, 1808). His address in Sommerstown was 30, Chalton Street,
and in London, 448, Strand. There are several reasons confirming
that the A. Neil in London and the A. O'Neil in Dublin are the
same person. For example, C. F. Barrett's The London Apprentice
was published by A. Neil in London in 1805, and republished
by O'Neil in Dublin at an unspecified date; the same applied
to The Mystery of the Black Convent, which first was
published by A. Neil in London [1805 or earlier], and then was
published by A. O'Neil in Dublin in 1814.
44.
The volumes were identified through our collection, supplemented
by a search in the electronic databases of ESTC, the British
Library Online Catalogue (BLC), COPAC, OCLC (WorldCat), and
the Sadleir-Black collection.
45.
It was serialised in nos 4 (March 1794)-6 (June 1795)-see
Mayo, p. 10.
46.
This does not include the anonymous A Biographical
Sketch of the Adventures of Jeremiah Grant, commonly called
Captain Grant (Dublin, [1816]), J. Reid's Emma; or, the
Victim of Despair. A Poetic Tale (Dublin, 1821), and National
Feeling; or, the History of Fitzsimon. A Novel, with Historical
and Political Remarks (by 'an Irishman') in 1821.
47.
It is practically certain that this is a reprint, because
an undated copy in the Sadleir-Black collection with a slightly
longer title, was published by A. Neil in London, and probably
appeared in 1805 or earlier (the period during which Neil lived
in London). This title is not to be confused with The Black
Convent; or, a Tale of Feudal Times (London, 1819). O'Neil
also worked for the publishers Graisberry and Campbell (Charles
Benson, Personal communication, 28 Feb 2003).
48.
A copy of The Voyage of Commodore Anson around the
World (Dublin, 1825) shows that at that time he was still
situated at 17 Chancery-Lane (Bickersteth Cat. 53/93).
49.
Some other examples: Wogan, Burnet, Parry, Holmes and
Charles reprinted in 1804 the novel The Sylph, which
had been originally published in London in 1779; an undated
version of Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto was
reprinted in Belfast prior to 1839. Novelettes were also published
by Edward Henry Morgan at the Classic Novels Office in Cork
during the first decade of the nineteenth century. An example
is his reprinting of Frances Sheridan's The History of Nourjahad
(London, 1767), which he published in 1803 in a condensed 74-page
format.
50.
See e.g. W. J. McCormack, Sheridan Le Fanu and Victorian
Ireland (Oxford: OUP, 1980).
51.
Siobhan Kilfeather, ' "Strangers at Home": Political Fictions
by Women in Eighteenth-Century Ireland' (unpublished doctoral
thesis, Princeton University, 1989). I. C. Ross, 'Fiction to
1800', in The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, gen.
ed. Seamus Deane, 5 vols (Derry: Field Day, and Cork: Cork University
Press, 1991-2002), I (550-1850), 682-87.
52.
Frank, The First Gothics, p. 243; M. Summers, The
Gothic Quest: A History of the Gothic Novel (London: Fortune
Press, [1938]), pp. 158 and 162.
53.
Frank, The First Gothics, p. 20.
54.
Frederick S. Frank, 'Gothic Gold: The Sadleir-Black Gothic
collection, 1998' Online: Internet (10 Mar 2001): <www.lib.virginia.edu/speccol/colls/gold.html>.
55.
Garside, 'The English Novel in the Romantic Era: Consolidation
and Dispersal', The English Novel, II, 57: Table 3.
56.
Frank, The First Gothics, pp. 90 and171.
57.
Mary Tarr, Catholicism in Gothic Fiction (Washington:
Catholic University of America Press, 1946), p. 121. Anti-Catholic
sentiments were also evident from novels published in Ireland:
for example, Simon Brerington's The Adventures of Signor
Gaudentio di Lucca, being the Substance of his Examination before
the Fathers of the Inquisition, at Bologna, in Italy, giving
an Account of an Unknown Country in the Midst of the Desarts
[sic] of Africa. Compiled from the Original Manuscript
in St Mark's Library, at Venice. With Critical Notes by the
Learned Signor Rhedi. Translated from the Italian. To Which
is Added, (as an Appendix) the History of the Inquisition, giving
an Account of its Establishment, the Treatment of its Prisoners,
the Torture Inflicted on Them, &c. &c. first appeared
in London in 1763, and was republished in Dublin by J. and J.
Carrick in 1798, and again by John Cumming in 1810.
58.
Ibid., p. 105.
59.
Ibid., p. 34.
60.
Garside, p. 38: Fig. 1.
61.
See Elizabeth James and Helen R. Smith, Penny Dreadfuls
and Boys' Adventures (London: British Library, 1998); and
also the Jarndyce Catalogues nos 150: 'Bloods and Penny Dreadfuls'
and 151: 'A Feast of Blood'.
62.
Based on our survey, and confirmed by Janet Nassau and
Brian Lake of Jarndyce, London (personal communication, Dec
2002).
63.
See Georges Zimmerman, The Irish Storyteller (Dublin:
Four Courts Press, 2001).
64.
Among these were Mary Shelley's Frankenstein,
Luke Conolly's The Friar's Tale, M. G. Lewis's The
Monk, John Polidori's The Vampyre, Ann Radcliffe's
The Mysteries of Udolpho, and Miss Owenson's The Novice
of St Dominick. The present authors did not find William
Beckford's Vathek in these libraries (Catalogue of
Gerrard Tyrrells Public Library, 11, Lower Sackville-Street
(Dublin, [1834]); Catalogue of the Library, 31, Lower Sackville-Street,
(near Carlisle Bridge,) J. Kempston, Proprietor (Dublin,
corrected to 1 January 1819); Catalogue of Hodgson's New
Circulating Library (Belfast, 1838)).
65.
Grierson introduced stereotype printing in Dublin with
the publication of The New Testament (Dublin: G. Grierson,
1813) (mentioned in Rowan cat. 50, part A/84).
66.
Between 1750 and 1819, between 18% and 33% of original
novels published during each decade were printed 'for the author'.
Only during 1760s was this zero, and during the 1820s it was
5%.
67.
Gothic tale set in Ireland during Viking times (Frank,
The First Gothics, p. 25).
68.
Gothic tale, featuring Reginal O'Mara and his grandfather
(ibid., p. 37).
69.
A Gothic tale (ibid., p. 406).
70.
Gothic adaptation of a pathetic case recorded by Hannah More.
Based on George Henry Glasse's translation of L'Inconnue
histoire véritable (ibid., p. 2).
71.
Gothic tale set in Scotland (ibid., p. 24).
72.
Gothic tale (ibid., p. 80).
73.
Printed and sold by M. C. Springsguth and A. Neil.
74.
Based on Angela Koch, ' "The Absolute Horror of
Horrors" Revised. A Bibliographical Checklist of Early-Nineteenth-Century
Gothic Bluebooks', Cardiff Corvey: Reading the Romantic Text
9 (Dec 2002). Online: Internet (20 Feb 2003): <http://www.cf.ac.uk/encap/corvey/
articles/cc09_n03.html>); COPAC.
75.
B. Dugdale and M. Keene in Dublin, and [J.] Bull in Waterford.
76.
Pagination is from pp. 109-44, indicating that the text
originally belonged to a larger work. The series title is Affecting
Tales.
77.
Novel written in verse. Copy in Sadleir-Black collection,
University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA., attributed to
the English author T. S. Whalley. Autograph signed by Eliz.
Whitney, MS note tipped in this copy has the following postscript:
'Those who are acquainted with the history of some of the leading
Irish families, and who have turned over such scanty records
of the times in which the scenes we have described are laid,
as are still accessible, will have no difficulty whatever in
recognizing, in the leading incidents and characters of the
foregoing tale, the hard, stern lines of recorded TRUTH.'
78.
It is possible that this tale was first published serialised
in The Sentimental and Masonic Magazine (Dublin) from
July to Oct 1792 (see Clyde, p. 70).
Copyright
Information
This article is copyright © 2003 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.).
An earlier version of this
paper was presented at Cardiff University in December
2000. We are greatly indebted to the following for
their kind and valuable advice on various aspects
of the paper: Jacqueline Belanger, Charles Benson,
Peter Garside, Margaret Kelleher, Anthony Mandal,
Catherine Morris, Paul Pollard, and Kevin Whelan.
The work was greatly facilitated by a grant from the
University of Notre Dame toward completion of our
guide to Irish fiction.
Referring to
this Article
R. LOEBER and M. STOUTHAMER-LOEBER. 'The Publication
of Irish Novels and Novelettes, 1750-1829: A Footnote
on Irish Gothic Fiction', Cardiff Corvey: Reading
the Romantic Text 10 (June 2003). Online: Internet
(date accessed): <http://www.cf.ac.uk/encap/romtext/articles/cc10_n02.html>.
Contributor
Details
Rolf Loeber (PhD) is Professor of Psychiatry, Psychology,
and Epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh,
and Professor of Juvenile Delinquency & Social
Development at the Free University, Amsterdam.
He has published widely on crime, mental health problems,
and substance use in juveniles. In addition,
he has published forty papers and three books on Irish
architecture, history, and literature. He and
his wife-Magda Stouthamer-Loeber, also Professor of
Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh-are currently
completing 'A Guide to Irish Fiction 1650 to 1900'.

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25 January, 2006
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