''Vertue Rewarded; or, The Irish Princess'' is a 1693 novel. Published in London, it is one of the earliest examples of Irish prose fiction in the

English language English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...

. Two original copies survive; one in the

Bodleian Library The Bodleian Library () is the main research library of the University of Oxford. Founded in 1602 by Sir Thomas Bodley, it is one of the oldest libraries in Europe. With over 13 million printed items, it is the second-largest library in ...

and one in the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

Plot summary

The novel opens with a quote from William D'Avenant's ''

Gondibert ''Gondibert'' is an epic poem by William Davenant. In it he attempts to combine the five-act structure of English Renaissance drama with the Homeric and Virgilian epic literary tradition. Davenant also sought to incorporate modern philosophical t ...

'' (1651). Set in

Clonmel Clonmel () is the county town and largest settlement of County Tipperary, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. The town is noted in Irish history for its resistance to the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, Cromwellian army which sacked the towns of Dro ...

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

in August 1690, the young Irish Protestant woman Marinda is romanced by a European prince in the army of William of Orange. There are two interpolated tales: one about the Irish princess Cluaneesha (set in pre-Norman Ireland) and one about Faniaca, an indigenous American living through the

Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire The Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire, also known as the Conquest of Peru, was one of the most important campaigns in the Spanish colonization of the Americas. After years of preliminary exploration and military skirmishes, 168 Spaniards, ...

Literary significance and criticism

Prof Hubert McDermott has suggested the work as a possible inspiration for

Samuel Richardson Samuel Richardson (baptised 19 August 1689 – 4 July 1761) was an English writer and printer known for three epistolary novels: '' Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded'' (1740), '' Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady'' (1748) and '' The Histo ...

's ''

Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded ''Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded'' is an epistolary novel, epistolary novel first published in 1740 by the English writer Samuel Richardson. Considered one of the first true English novels, it serves as Richardson's version of conduct book, condu ...

'' (1740), considered the first major English novel – the two books have similar plots: "a beautiful and virtuous young woman of little or no social status falls in love with a prince or libertine who is equally besotted but whose wealth, rank and ambition make him desire only to seduce and debauch the chaste heroine, without having to marry her." Also, the title "virtue rewarded" is not found in any other work of the period. Ian Campbell Ross has noted similarities with ''

Oroonoko ''Oroonoko: or, the Royal Slave'' is a work of prose fiction by Aphra Behn (1640–1689), first published in 1688 by William Canning and reprinted later that year in the compilation ''Three Histories by Mrs. A. Behn''. The eponymous hero is a ...

'', both books mixing romance, history and folklore. John Wilson Foster wrote on how ''Vertue Rewarded'' excludes the " wild Irish" from its world (Marinda is an English-speaking Protestant, and presumably of English ancestry), and notes how the Peru story "reinforces the impression of dislocated

exotica Exotica is a musical genre that was popular during the 1950s to mid-1960s with Americans who came of age during World War II. The term was coined by Simon "Si" Waronker, Liberty Records co-founder and board chairman, named after the 1957 Mart ...

." ''Vertue Rewarded'' is assumed to have been written by one of the British planters who settled in Ireland after the Williamite conquest, and has been described as anti-Irish

propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded l ...

References

External links

Full text
on the

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

website {{Authority control 1693 novels 17th-century Irish novels Irish romance novels Works published anonymously Novels set in County Tipperary Williamite War in Ireland