RIDDELL, Mrs. née Charlotte E. Cowan. Born at Carrickfergus, 1832. Published her first book 1858, since when she has written nearly forty novels. All of these are remarkably clever, and some have been very popular. They deal chiefly with social and domestic life among the Protestant upper and middle classes. The scene is laid in London, Hertfordshire, Lincolnshire, Scotland, &c. Few deal with Ireland. We may mention George Geith of Fen Court (1864), City and Suburb (1861), A Life’s Assize (1870), Above Suspicion (1875), Too Much Alone, Susan Drummond, Race for Wealth, Head of the Firm. Her books are noteworthy for the intimate knowledge of the proceedings of law and the business world of London which they display. D. 1906.
⸺ MAXWELL DREWITT. [1865]. New illustr. ed., 1869. (Arnold).
A rather lengthy but well-told tale of adventures in Connemara, including an old-fashioned election (time, 1854) and a well-described trial for robbery on the Drogheda and Dundalk Railway. The plot is well constructed and the characters, mainly of the landlord class, sympathetically depicted. The peasantry are faithfully, if somewhat humorously, delineated. Dr. Sheen, the dispensary doctor, and his patients are well pourtrayed.
⸺ A STRUGGLE FOR FAME. 1883. Several eds.
Partly autobiographical. Describes a young girl and her father sailing from Belfast with her MS. to win her way in London. Her experiences of publishers and love affairs.
⸺ BERNA BOYLE. Pp. 443. (Macmillan). 6s. [1884]. 1900, &c.
A love story of the Co. Down about fifty years ago. Deals mainly with the trials of a young lady, who suffers much from suitors with disagreeable relatives. The characters are mainly drawn from a rather uninspiring and unsympathetic type of Ulster folk. Perhaps the most striking feature is the character of Berna’s mother, a vulgar, pushful, foolish woman. There is humour not a little in the situations and characters. The story suffers from its great length.
⸺ THE BANSHEE’S WARNING, and Other Tales. (London: Macqueen). 6d. Paper. 1903.
Six stories, four having some concern with Ireland. The first tells how the Banshee goes to London to warn the scapegrace son of an Irish family, who is a clever surgeon, yet always plunged in debt. It is a study of a strange personality. “A Vagrant Digestion” humorously relates the journeyings of the hypochondriacal Vicar of Rathdundrum in search of health. “Mr. Mabbot’s Fright” and “So Near, or the Pity of It” both illustrate the honesty and the proper pride of the Irish. The latter is pathetic. The former is humorous, is full of life and movement, and contains fine descriptions of the coast-drive from Belfast to Larne in the old days, and of an exciting run-away.
RIDDALL, Walter.