Ulrica Bio

The Corvey Novels Project at the University of Nebraska

— Studies in British Literature of the Romantic Period —

Rosalia St. Clair

Rosalia St. Clair. Ulrica of Saxony: A Romantic Tale of the Fifteenth Century

London: A. K. Newman and Co., 1828.

Biographical Sketch of Rosalia St. Clair

"Rosalia St Clair" (fl. 1819-34) is a pseudonym for an author of 13 novels, the earliest published by the Minerva Press. Contrasts preoccupied St Clair as in The Highland Castle and the Lowland Cottage (1820). In The Son of O'Donnel (1819), she unites Irish and American, black and white, while in The First and Last Years of Wedded Life (1821), she merges Irish Catholic and Protestant. The Pauper Boy, or The Ups and Downs of Life (1834) is notable because of its focus on the workhouse and use of Jewish characters in a fairly sympathetic light. Other novels are Clavering Tower (1822), The Banker's Daughters of Bristol: or Compliance and Decision (1824) and Ulrica of Saxony: A Romantic Tale of the Fifteenth Century (1828).

The online versions of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography yields the following information:

"Hall [née Scott], Agnes C. [pseud. Rosalia St Clair] (1775/6-1846), writer and translator, was born in Roxburghshire. Little is known of her early life, but about 1796 she married Robert Hall MD (1763-1824), in Linton, Roxburghshire. She was an industrious and versatile contributor on literary and scientific topics to the encyclopaedias of O. G. Gregory, William Nicholson, and Abraham Rees, and she also displayed her scientific interests in her Elements of Botany (1802). In the same year, under the initials A. C. H., she published Rural Recreations, or, Modern Farmer's Calendar; and Monthly Instructor … by a Farmer, a practical guide to the implementation of new agricultural methods and tools.

Hall was also a gifted translator, and had a particular interest in travel literature. In 1805 she translated Voyage to, and Travels through, the Four Principal Islands of the African Seas from the original work in French by J. B. G. M. Bory de Saint-Vincent, in 1806 M. A. B. Mangourit's Travels in Hanover, and in 1807 F. R. J. de Pons's Travels in South America … during 1801, 1802, 1803, and 1804. She also published translations of The Memoirs of the Life and Writing of Victor Alfieri (2 vols., 1810), and several historical romances by the comtesse de Genlis, including La duchess de la Vallière (a novel) (1804). Hall herself also wrote several novels, feeling it necessary to publish them under the pseudonym of Rosalia St Clair, even though they were later described as 'inculcating the purest morals, and the most patriotic and virtuous principles' (GM, 98). Among her original fiction was The First and Last Years of Wedded Life (1827), a story of Irish life in the reign of George IV, and a historical novel founded on the massacre of Glencoe. Obstinacy (1826), a didactic tale for young people, was published under her own name. In her later years, Hall contributed to the Annual Biography, the Westminster Review, and Fraser's Magazine. She died at 5 Charles Street, Clarendon Square, Somerstown, London, on 24 November 1846."

M. Clare Loughlin-Chow

Sources
Genteman's Magazine, 2nd ser., 27 (1847), 97-8.
J. Britten and G. S. Boulger, A biographical dictionary of British and Irish botanists (1893)
DNB · IGI · d. cert.
Archives
BL, letters as applicant to the Royal Literary Fund, loan no. 96
© Oxford University Press 2004-6

M. Clare Loughlin-Chow, 'Hall , Agnes C. (1775/6-1846)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://0-www.oxforddnb.com.library.unl.edu:80/view/article/11939 , accessed 19 April 2006]

Additionally, The Feminist Companion to Literature in England contains some analysis of this author's writings. The Companion states the following information:

"She writes well on Irish and Scots topics, often includes animals, and several times describes the successful freeing and education of slaves. The Son of O'Donnel, 1819, brings together Irish and American, white and black; The First and Last Years of Married Life, 1821, reconciles Irish Protestant and Catholic (leaving only ancient rugged Mabel still crying revenge and doom) and praises US government as 'emanating from the people themselves'. The Pauper Boy, or The Ups and Downs of Life, 1834, opens with a first-person expose` of the workhouse system, and gives Jewish characters (qualified) approval. Dialect is a feature of The Highland Castle, and the Lowland Cottage, 1820, and Eleanor Oglivie, The Maid of the Tweed, 1829 (on the 1715 rebellion). In The Banker's Daughter, or Compliance and Decision, 1824, the daughters (like some characters elsewhere) are recklessly blackened, while extreme female submissiveness is pitied and female firmness praised. Ulrica of Saxony, 1828, is set in late medieval times; Marston, 1835, is not, as usually said, RSC's."

Additional notes of interest for the author and Ulrica of Saxony follow:

Notes on the Author
- Considered to be an Ann Radcliffe imitator; combining Gothic and Romantic styles
- Diverse plot lines; Irish, Jewish, Reformation Germany, American characters, poverty versus inherited wealth, and praise for American democracy
- Use of dialect received praise
- Continuing theme of Protestant and Catholic; The First and Last Years of Wedded Life (1821) and Ulrica of Saxony: A Romantic Tale of the Fifteenth Century (1828)
- Only known reviews are in the Gazette of Fashion and the Monthly Censor for Clavering Tower (1822) and in the Literary Chronicle for The First and Last Years of Wedded Life (1821)

Reader's Notes
- In 1815, The Curse of Ulrica; or the White Cross Knights of Riddarholmen. A Swedish Romance of the Sixteenth Century was published. Possibly very influential for Ulrica of Saxony.
- Louisa Ulrica, born 24 Jun 1720, the tenth child of Frederick William I, king of Prussia, and Sophia Dorothea of Hanover. Became Queen of Sweden in 1751. She attempted a coup in 1756 with the assistance of her husband in attempting to remove the senate and gain more monarchial power. Characteristics similar to our heroine: courage, audacity, and intelligent.
- St. Clair is a common name in the UK and Europe; St Clair castle in England and a number of Abbeys; two female St Clares in Catholic Church
- In 1811, Rosalie; or the Castle of Montalabreth was published. A cherished novel that may have influenced the pseudonym?
- Very little contact between the German principalities and Great Britain during the writing of this novel

Works Cited

Blain, Virginia, Patricia Clements, and Isobel Grundy, Eds. The Feminist companion to literature in English : women writers from the Middle Ages to the present. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990.

M. Clare Loughlin-Chow, 'Hall , Agnes C. (1775/6-1846)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://0-www.oxforddnb.com.library.unl.edu:80/view/article/11939, accessed 19 April 2006]