Regina Maria Roche’s legacy is that of a ‘minor’ Gothic writer, paling in comparison to the likes of Ann Radcliffe and Mary Shelley. Yet, during her lifetime, she was widely celebrated, some of her novels becoming bestsellers and appearing in numerous editions. In fact, she and Radcliffe’s work rivalled each other, and Roche became known as ‘Ireland’s Ann Radcliffe’.

Roche (maiden name Dalton) was born in 1764 in Waterford, Ireland. She had a love of literature from an early age and began writing young; in her own words, she gave “utterance to the workings of my mind”. Her first novel was published in 1789 when she was twenty-five, her second following a few years later in 1793. Both were under her maiden name; she married Ambrose Roche in 1794, subsequently moving to England.

Success came with Roche’s third novel, The Children of the Abbey, published in 1796 in four volumes. It told the story of two siblings who were robbed of their inheritance and contains your typical Gothic elements, such as ghosts, an old mansion, and a haunted abbey, while also including characteristics of a sentimental novel. It was a hugely popular Gothic romance and remained in print for most of the nineteenth century, a novel tailor-made for the audience of the day.

The Children of the Abbey earned a mention in Emma, and it wasn’t the only one to be recognised by Jane Austen. In 1798, Roche published Clermont, which was later listed as one of the seven ‘horrid’ novels of Northanger Abbey. This could be interpreted as a slur against Roche, but academic Albert Power suggests that this would be a mistake; he believes it is out of respect rather than a dismissal. 

Indeed, there are other links between the two women’s works: to take one, one of the minor characters in Children of the Abbey is named Sir Charles Bingley — a name more famous from Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, published 1813.

In any case, Clermont was Roche’s second big success. It has been quoted as “arguably the definitive text of the Gothic novel craze during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,” and was her first — and only — attempt at writing a full Gothic novel. It is decidedly darker than any of Roche’s other works, containing more ghosts, a murder the night of a violent storm, and a hand appearing from behind a tapestry to indicate the perpetrator of a crime.

Both of these novels have been through multiple editions and were translated into French and Spanish. Unfortunately, they were also the peak of her success; after a fifth novel in 1800, Roche went on a seven year hiatus from publishing due to financial difficulties. Her husband went bankrupt in 1802, which was then followed by the death of Roche’s father, whose estate was misrepresented by a dishonest lawyer.

Roche started to write again in 1807 after receiving monetary aid from the Royal Literary Fund. Between then and 1834, she wrote eleven more novels, bringing her to a total of sixteen over the course of her life. Her later works, mostly set in rural Ireland and dealing with contemporary Irish themes, never matched the successes of her earlier ones.

Ambrose Roche died in 1829, after which Regina Maria returned to her home city of Waterford. Her later years were plagued with bouts of depression, and she died in relative obscurity in 1845 at the age of 81. Her obituary in The Gentleman’s Magazine read that she was a “distinguished writer [who] had retired from the world and the world had forgotten her. But many young hearts, now old, must remember the effect upon them of her graceful and touching compositions.”

Sources:

• Power, Albert, ‘Regina Maria Roche (1764-1845)’, The Green Book: Writings on Irish Gothic, Supernatural and Fantastic Literature, 11 (2018), 35–41
• https://editions.covecollective.org/chronologies/regina-maria-roche-children-abbey
• https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/roche-regina-maria-c-1764-1845
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regina_Maria_Roche