'an Outlandish Miss': The Geography of 'Vertue' in Three Seventeenth-Century Irish Novels (Critical Essay‪)‬

The contemporary, high-cultural romance precedents for Vertue Rewarded; or, the Irish Princess (London, 1693) are well established, and found in the work of such Irish writers as Robert and Roger Boyle, William Congreve and Nahum Tate. This essay explores the longer prehistory of Vertue Rewarded's account of cross-cultural love in Clonmel: the two picaresque novels of Richard Head. It examines what happens when the Irish-born Head has his protagonists leave Dublin to explore the uncharted territories (fictional and amorous) that lie beyond the Pale. It argues that the narrative geographies of all three novels are haunted by the complex history of English-Irish conflict across the long seventeenth century. **********