CHARLES

See also:

• ROBERT
• ROBERT (1275—1343)
• ROBERT, HUBERT (1753-1808)
• ROBERT, LOUIS LEOPOLD (1794-1835)

ROBERT

See also:

• CHARLES ROBERT MATURIN (1782-1824)

MATURIN (1782-1824)  , Irish novelist and dramatist, was born in Dublin in 1782 . His grandfather, Gabriel Jasper Maturin, had been Swift's successor in the deanery of St Patrick . Charles Maturin was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and became curate of Loughrea and then of St Peter's, Dublin . His first novels, The Fatal Revenge; or, the Family of Monlorio (1807), The Wild Irish Boy (18o8), The Milesian Chief (1812), were issued under the pseudonym of " Dennis Jasper Murphy." All these were mercilessly ridiculed, but the irregular power displayed in them attracted the notice of Sir Walter Scott, who recommended the author to Byron . Through their influence Maturin's tragedy of Bertram was produced at Drury Lane in 1816, with Kean and Miss Kelly in the leading parts . A French version by Charles Nodier and Baron Taylor was produced in Paris at the Theatre Favart . Two more tragedies, Manuel (1817) and Fredolfo (2819), were failures, and his poem The Universe (1821) fell flat . He wrote three more novels, Women (1818), Melmoth, the Wanderer (182o), and The Albigenses (1824) . Melmoth, which forms its author's title to remembrance, is the best of them, and has for hero a kind of " Wandering Jew." Honore de Balzac wrote a sequel to it under the title of Melmoth reconcilie a l'eglise (1835) . Maturin died in Dublin on the 3oth of October 1824 .