Author: Miss Gunning (Elizabeth)

Publisher:

Published: 1808

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13:

"The Irish exile of the title has left for England then America, presumably because of his involvement in the uprising of 1798, though this is unstated (the political elements of the novel are generally not explicit), leaving behind his wife and son. He settles near Philadelphia and eventually remarries the daughter of another exile (definitely a former rebel, but one who has seen the error of his ways), pointedly named Erin. Meanwhile, the rest of the novel deals with the exile's own daughter Rossanna, and the fashionable social life she is forced, unwillingly to lead in London. Her father's dubious history almost threatens her ability to make a match, but all is made good in the end. Most of volume three is a play, "The Favourite" (pp. 93-255) - a private theatrical in which she takes part." Bernard Quaritch Ltd., The Downshire novels (2020)