Romance of the Turret; or, Anecdotes of a Catholic Family, A Novel by Eliza Kirkham Mathews

The Romance of the Turret or, Anecdotes of a Catholic Family (1798 or 1799) is an unpublished gothic novel by Eliza Kirkham Mathews author of What Has Been. The novel focuses on Margarette de Barry, an orphan who by turns of the novel’s plot discovers her mother’s tragic and sensational history. Early in the novel, Margarette moves to Molesworth Abbey, falls in love, and marries George, the young scion of a prominent local family. This is where the threat of incest connected with her not knowing her parentage arrives, at times literally proclaimed by a spectral figure or disembodied voice. These scenes feature tropes and characters typical of late eighteenth-century Gothic novels: a sinister priest, picturesque and sublime landscape descriptions (including, later, of the Alps), grand castles, romantic ruins, banditti subplots, corrupt patrimony, family tragedy, Continental Catholicism as magical and exotic. After leaving Molesworth, Margarette travels to the French Alps, where she stays in the novel’s second Gothic castle. There she is also pursued by the novel’s villain, the lustful Father Jerome (if the novel was indeed written between 1798 and 1799, then it is very likely that Matthew Lewis’ lustful monk influenced this character). After various rapidly paced and I would say rather exciting events, the novel reveals that Margarette’s mother, Genevieve, was imprisoned by Father Jerome and later died giving birth to Margarette, whose father was the twin brother of Lord Molesworth. This means that the novel’s threatened mesalliance has not occurred: Margarette and her George are first cousins and not siblings as was feared. This novel and commentary provides material to assign to undergraduates studying eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century women’s writing.