Charles Robert Maturin
Maturin, Charles Robert (1780-1824), novelist. Born in Dublin of a Huguenot [see Protestantism] family, educated at TCD and ordained in 1803, he was appointed curate at Loughrea in the west of Ireland, marrying Henrietta Kingsbury a year later. The time he spent in the west made a deep impression on his romantic imagination, and his memories of its landscape inspired much of his work, particularly The Milesian Chief (1812). In 1805 he became curate of St Peter's parish, Aungier St., Dublin, where he remained until his death. Maturin himself financed publication of The Fatal Revenge (1807) and The Wild Irish Boy (1808) before a reversal of family fortunes forced him to turn his love of writing to commercial gain. His literary career, combined with his reputation for eccentricity, dandyism, and a love of dancing and theatre, prevented his preferment in the Church. Women, or Pour et Contre (1818) is a romantic story of a young man who chooses between a daughter and her mother without realizing that they are related. Maturin turned to the stage with Bertram, a tragedy which, with Edmund Kean in the title-role, was the season's hit at Drury Lane in 1816. Though the author visited London on the strength of it, his subsequent dramas, Manuel (1817) and Osmyn the Renegade (1819), did not succeed as well. With Melmoth the Wanderer (1820), a work of lasting interest, he returned to fiction. From the moment of its appearance its power was recognized. Shortly before his death Maturin produced The Albigenses (1824), a novel planned as the first of a projected trilogy of historical romances. Neglected in Ireland, he did, however, find a readership in France, all of his novels being translated by 1825, with Baudelaire and Hugo declaring their admiration for his work, while Balzac produced a sequel, Melmoth réconcilié (1835), in his Comédie humaine. Oscar Wilde, related to Maturin on his mother's side, adopted the pen-name ‘Sebastian Melmoth’ after his release from Reading Gaol.
Bibliography
Claude Fierobe, Charles Robert Maturin: l'homme et l'œuvre (1974).
