Vertue Rewarded
A 1693 Irish novel of love and virtue during the Williamite war, published anonymously and never attributed.
- Original byline
- Anonymous
- Published
- 1693
- Form
- Novels
- Authorship
- Still unknown
- Reason for anonymity
- Unrecorded
- Copyright
- Public domain
- Reference
- Wikipedia · Wikidata
The authorship story
Vertue Rewarded; or, The Irish Princess appeared in London in 1693, a short novel in which a foreign prince quartered in Clonmel courts a virtuous local beauty against the backdrop of the Williamite war, decades before Richardson made the virtue-rewarded plot famous. It is now studied as one of the earliest Irish novels. The title page named no author and no attribution has been established since, though scholars have canvassed candidates among Williamite officers and Irish men of letters. The documented record leaves it where it began: an accomplished early novel by nobody known.
Questions readers ask
Who wrote Vertue Rewarded?
Nobody knows. No author for Vertue Rewarded has been identified in the documented record.
Can I read Vertue Rewarded for free?
Yes. Vertue Rewarded is in the public domain and the full text is free to read at Project Gutenberg.
When was Vertue Rewarded published?
Vertue Rewarded was published in 1693 without an author’s name.
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