Died DOD unknown Period 1797-1799 | Occupation Writer Genre Gothic novels | |
Mrs F. C. Patrick was an 18th-century writer of Gothic fiction with at least three novels to the name. She was one of the earliest women writers of Gothic fiction.
Contents
Life and work
Almost nothing is known about Mrs F. C. Patrick. Her name may be a pen name. She is believed to be Irish and to have lived in England. She describes herself in one of her books as the wife of an officer.
Each of her novels is different from the other. One is as typical in gothic novels anti Catholic, one makes fun of the novels of Mrs Radcliff and other such gothic novels and the other uses the national politics of the day, set in domestic scale plots. She is discussed as one of the Irish Gothic authors in the various critics of the genre.
"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)"
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.