Charles Maturin
| Charles Maturin | |
|---|---|
1819 engraving
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| Born |
25 September 1782 Dublin |
| Died | 30 October 1824 (aged 42) Dublin |
| Nationality | Irish |
| Occupation | clergyman, writer |
| Children | Edward Maturin |
Charles Robert Maturin, also known as C. R. Maturin (25 September 1782 – 30 October 1824), was an Irish Protestant clergyman (ordained in the Church of Ireland) and a writer of Gothic plays and novels. His best known work is the novel Melmoth the Wanderer.
Maturin was descended from Huguenots who found shelter in Ireland, one of whom was Gabriel Jacques Maturin who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin after Jonathan Swift in 1745. Charles Robert Maturin was born in Dublin and attended Trinity College. Shortly after being ordained as curate of Loughrea, County Galway, in 1803, he moved back to Dublin as curate of St Peter's Church. He lived in York Street with his father William, a Post Office official, and his mother, Fedelia Watson, and married on 7 October 1804 the acclaimed singer Henrietta Kingsbury.
His first three works were Gothic novels published under the pseudonym Dennis Jasper Murphy and were critical and commercial failures. They did, however, catch the attention of Sir Walter Scott, who recommended Maturin's work to Lord Byron. With their help, Maturin's play, Bertram was staged in 1816 at the Drury Lane for 22 nights, with Edmund Kean starring in the lead role as Bertram. Financial success, however, eluded Maturin, as the play's run coincided with his father's unemployment and another relative's bankruptcy, both of them assisted by the fledgling writer. To make matters worse, Samuel Taylor Coleridge publicly denounced the play as dull and loathsome, and "melancholy proof of the depravation of the public mind", going nearly so far as to decry it as atheistic.
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