Regina Marie Roche

The Vicar of Lansdowne: or, Country Quarters:  A Tale

London:  J. Johnson, 1789. 2nd ed., 1800.

 

Biographical Sketch of Regina Marie Roche

 

Regina Maria Dalton (Roche) was born in 1764 in County Wexford, Ireland was brought up in Dublin and showed an early passion for writing. Her father Captain Blundell Dalton of the British 40th Regiment was somewhat famous, and authorship of her first book The Vicar of Lansdowne, or Country Quarters (1789) was often mistakenly attributed to him.

Roche wrote The Vicar of Lansdowne while still only a teenager, but did not publish it until 1789. She addresses the critics at the opening of the book, imploring them to "disregard my humble TALE." This message in fact increased criticism and review of Roche's works, especially her later works.

She married Ambrose Roche in about 1794 and moved to England. She published her third book, The Children of the Abbey, in 1796, a gothic novel with British settings. This book is considered to reflect Roche's anxiety about her father's death shortly prior. One of her most successful novels, The Children of the Abbey was published in ten editions. Roche followed with Clermont in 1798, considered by many to be her finest gothic novel. Jane Austen satirizes Clermont as one of the "horrid" novels in Northanger Abbey and utilizes The Children of the Abbey as one of Harriet Smith's favorite readings in Emma.

Though Roche is considered only a minor gothic novelist today, during her day she was considered the closest rival to Ann Radcliffe. Many of her novels were published by the Minerva Press, and their plotlines and morals were quite characteristic of contemporary women's popular fiction. Her use of provincial settings was further popularized by subsequent authors at the beginning of the new century. Roche was highly celebrated during the 1790s and seemed to receive financial support, in addition to patronage, from Queen Charlotte. However, the new century commenced with sickness and despair for Roche. She and her husband were extorted out of Irish estates by a dubious lawyer, and a Chancery suit burdened the couple at the beginning of the 1800s. The illness and depression Roche suffered did not inhibit her literary pursuits; however, many of her following novels were either ignored or reproved by critics.

Roche's husband died in 1829, and she decided to return to Ireland. Roche published only one more novel, The Nun's Picture, in 1836. She spent the rest of her life in Waterford, England until her death in 1845 at the age of 81. Throughout her lifetime Roche published sixteen novels.

-- Prepared by Diane Sylofski, University of Nebraska, April 2006.
© Diane Sylofski, 2006.