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Corvey 'Adopt-an-Author'
Henrietta Rouviere Mosse
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The Corvey Project
at Sheffield Hallam University |
Biography of
Henrietta Rouviere Mosse (?1770–?1835)
Amy Rozmus
There is very little known about
Henrietta Rouviere Mosse and it has been difficult to find information
about her. The most information that I have found has been from her
personal letters to the Royal Literary Fund, but it must not be forgotten
that any information from these letters is likely to be exaggerated as
they were used in order to procure funding for her writing. Henrietta
Rouviere was born in Ireland and began writing for Minerva when she moved
to London. Her first novel Lussington Abbey was published
anonymously in 1804, and following its success she published her second
novel Heirs Of Villeroy in 1806 under her own name. She began
research in the British Museum for her third novel, A Peep At Our
Ancestors, which was set in the twelfth century, but her mother’s
illness delayed publication until 1807.
The Feminist Companion to
Literature in English states that Henrietta
Rouviere married businessman Isaac Mosse by 1812 when she published
Arrivals From India, but Summers’ A Gothic Bibliography states
that she married him around 1815 or 1816. However, Mosse makes the date that
she married clear in a letter to the Royal Literary Fund dated December 22nd
1824, when she says that they have been married ‘nearly twenty years’ (Royal
Literary Fund File 532), suggesting that the date Summers gives is more
accurate.
According to Mosse’s letters Isaac
Mosse had been successful in business but by 1822 was reduced to ‘a second
childhood’ (RLF File 532) by paralytic strokes, and so her writing became
their support. In total, Henrietta Rouviere Mosse has thirty-nine letters on
file in the Royal Literary Fund Archive, twenty-three of which were written
by her either asking for financial assistance or acknowledging assistance.
In a letter dated 1830, a year after her last novel The Blandfords
was written, she was planning a short work on ‘Distresses of Women’, but she
comments that ‘authorship has become a very doubtful source for existence’ (RLF
File 532). This paper was never published and Henrietta Rouviere Mosse died
‘of a paralytic attack…in a miserable attic’ (RLF File 532) in 1835(?). Her
doctor applied on her behalf to the Royal Literary Fund for help with her
funeral expenses, and although they had made her many payments during her
lifetime, this request was denied.
Published Works
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Lussington Abbey. 1804.
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The Heirs of Villeroy; a Romance.
1806.
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A Peep at our Ancestors: An Historical Romance.
1807.
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The Old Irish Baronet: or, Manners of my Country.
1808.
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Arrivals from India: or, Time’s a Great Master.
1812.
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Craigh-Melrose Priory: or, Memoirs of the Mount Linton Family.
1816.
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A Bride and No Wife.
1817.
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A Father’s Love and a Woman’s Friendship: or, The Widow
and Her Daughters. 1825.
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Gratitude: and Other Tales.
1826.
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Woman’s Wit and Man’s Wisdom: or, Intrigue; a Novel.1827.
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The Blandfords: or, Fate and Fortune.
1829.
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Translation of the Battle of Waterloo.
Date unknown.
Bibliography |
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