Florence Macarthy: An Irish Tale:

by Sydney Owenson

Editor: Jenny McAuley


Chawton House Library
Chawton House Library: Women's Novels
Hb: 512pp: May 2012
978 1 84893 168 8: 234x156mm: £60.00/$99.00
E ISBN   978 1 84893 255 5

This is the first modern scholarly edition of Florence Macarthy: An Irish Tale (1818). Owenson's seventh novel, it is the most sophisticated of her four 'national tales'. In these tales, Owenson combined conventional romance plotlines with discussion of the political and social problems in Ireland, following the passing of the Act of Union in 1800.

The plot concerns General Fitzwalter, an Anglo-Irish aristocrat, returning to Ireland to claim his inheritance. A series of incidents involving both mistaken and assumed identity drives the plot along, whilst delivering a polemic against the failure of the post-Union administration to emancipate the Irish Catholics or to deal with increasing poverty. The vivacious patriotic novelist and mistress of disguise, Lady Clancare/Florence Macarthy, who wins the affection of General Fitzwalter also functions as a voice against the mysogyny of the contemporary literary establishment.

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