Mrs F. C. Patrick
{{short description|Gothic novelist}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
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| birth_date = Unknown
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| death_date = Unknown
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| occupation = Writer
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| period =1797-1799
| genre = Gothic novels
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Mrs F. C. Patrick was an 18th-century writer of Gothic fiction with at least three novels to her name. She was one of the earliest female writers of Gothic fiction.{{cite book|last=Foster|first=John Wilson|title=The Cambridge Companion to the Irish Novel|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=o5g3X3gT2kgC&pg=PA80|year=2006|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-67996-1|page=80}}
Life and work
Almost nothing is known about Mrs F. C. Patrick and her name may have been a pen name. She is believed to have been Irish and to have lived in England. She describes herself in one of her books as the wife of an officer.{{cite web | url=http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=patrmr | title=Orlando Project | accessdate=21 February 2016}}
Each of her novels is different from the others. One is, as is typical of many gothic novels, anti Catholic; one satirizes the novels of Mrs Radcliffe and other gothic writers; and the third refers to the national politics of the day, set in domestic scale plots.{{cite book| title=A Cultural History of the Irish Novel, 1790–1829|author =Claire Connolly| publisher=Cambridge University Press | year=2011}}{{cite book|title=The Corvey Library and Anglo-German Cultural Exchanges, 1770-1837: Essays to Honour Rainer Schöwerling| author=Werner Huber, Rainer Schöwerling| publisher=Wilhelm Fink Verlag|year= 2004}}{{cite book| title=English and British Fiction, 1750-1820|author=Peter Garside, Karen O'Brien|publisher=Oxford University Press|year= 2015}}{{cite book| title=Mistress of Udolpho: The Life of Ann Radcliffe| author=Rictor Norton|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing|year= 1999}} She is discussed as one of the Irish Gothic authors by various critics of the genre:{{cite book|author=Jarlath Killeen|title=The Emergence of Irish Gothic Fiction: History, Origins, Theories|url=https://archive.org/details/IrishGothicFiction|year=2014|publisher=Edinburgh University Press|isbn=978-0-7486-9080-0|pages=[https://archive.org/details/IrishGothicFiction/page/n78 70], 126, 171}} "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)."{{cite journal|issue=10|journal=Romantic Textualities|title=The Publication of Irish Novels and Novelettes, 1750–1829, A Footnote on Irish Gothic Fiction|author=Rolf Loeber and Magda Stouthame-Loeber|volume=June| year=2003|url=http://www.romtext.org.uk/articles/cc10_n02/}}
Criticism
From Critical Review /JAS, 1799, ns vol. 27 (1799): 115.
The Jesuit; or, the History of Anthony Babington, Esq. an historical Novel
Here we have a tale of more than common merit. Of those which, since the Ghost Seer, have hinged upon supernatural illusions, this is perhaps the only one that does not disgust by the impossibility of its incidents. Some passages are deeply pathetic. To the death of Sheffield we object, as an act of unnecessary and improbable cruelty, which indeed could not have been perpetrated.
There is a longer discussion in the Monthly Review /JAS, 1799 vol. 30 (1799): 95-7.{{cite web | url=https://www2.shu.ac.uk/corvey/cw3/ContribPage.cfm?Contrib=220 | title=Women Writers on the Web | accessdate=21 February 2016}}
Bibliography
- The Irish Heiress: A Novel. London: William Lane, 1797
- More Ghosts!. London: William Lane, 1798
- The Jesuit; or, the History of Anthony Babington, Esq. An Historical Novel. R. Cruttwell, 1799
References
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Category:18th-century Irish women writers
Category:18th-century Irish writers
Category:Women romantic fiction writers
Category:Irish romantic fiction writers
Category:Irish women horror writers
Category:Irish women novelists
Category:Writers of Gothic fiction
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