Henrietta Rouviere Mosse

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HRM published about ten novels and a volume of short fiction with the Minerva Press and its successor during the early nineteenth century; writing at first for pleasure, then out of increasingly desperate financial need. Her fiction is melodramatically plotted but well-written, with skilful handling of dialogue both fashionable and low-life, and with scenes ranging through London, the English provinces, Scotland, France, and Italy.

Milestones

1774

Henrietta Rouviere, later Mosse , was born in Ireland, probably in Dublin and probably round about this year.
Ashfield, Andrew. Email to Isobel Grundy about Henrietta Rouviere Mosse.
Loeber, Rolf, and Magda Loeber. A Guide to Irish Fiction 1650-1900. Four Courts.
946

August 1804

Henrietta Rouviere 's first novel, Lussington Abbey, in two volumes, appeared under her birth name through the Minerva Press .
McLeod, Deborah. The Minerva Press. University of Alberta.

After 1 October 1807

HRM issued in her birth name and by (mostly Irish) subscription through the Minerva Press a novel she had been trying to publish for some years: A Peep at our Ancestors. An Historical Romance, in four volumes.
Garside, Peter et al., editors. The English Novel 1770-1829. Oxford University Press.
2: 254

After late June 1829

According to an advertisement, HRM published the last of her novels, The Blandfords; or, Fate and Fortune, dedicated to Louisa, Marchioness Cornwallis , who had offered Mosse financial support.
She was the widow of the second Marquess, and officially the daughter of the fourth Duke of Gordon, though her mother is said to have said she was extramaritally conceived.
Cokayne, George Edward. The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, extant, extinct, or dormant. Editor Gibbs, Vicary, St Catherine Press.
Peace, Mary et al., editors. “Corvey Women Writers on the Web: an Electronic Guide to Literature 1796-1834 (CW3)”. Sheffield Hallam Corvey: The Corvey Project at Sheffield Hallam University.
Garside, Peter et al., editors. The English Novel 1770-1829. Oxford University Press.
2: 689

By 19 October 1834

HRM died at her lodgings in 6 Somers Town Terrace, London after a paralytic stroke, in a state of great destitution in a miserable attic. She was buried on the 19th.
Her washerwoman and her doctor wrote to seek funds for her very last expenses.
Ashfield, Andrew. Email to Isobel Grundy about Henrietta Rouviere Mosse.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

Biography

Birth and Family

1774

Henrietta Rouviere, later Mosse , was born in Ireland, probably in Dublin and probably round about this year.
Ashfield, Andrew. Email to Isobel Grundy about Henrietta Rouviere Mosse.
Loeber, Rolf, and Magda Loeber. A Guide to Irish Fiction 1650-1900. Four Courts.
946