The Children of the Abbey The Children of the Abbey The Children of the Abbey is a novel by the Irish romantic novelist Regina Maria Roche. It first appeared in 1796, in London in 4 volumes, and related the tale of Amanda and Oscar Fitzalan, two young people in love who are robbed of their rightful inheritance by a forged will. Her third novel, it was a major commercial success, remaining in print for most of the 19th century, although its critical reception suffered from its original publication by the sensationalist Minerva Press. "The Children of the Abbey" was also mentioned in Jane Austen's popular
Northanger Abbey as the preface of Ian McEwan's "Atonement", thus likening the naive mistakes of Austen's Catherine Morland to those of his own character Briony Tallis, who is in a similar position: both characters have very over-active imaginations, which lead to misconceptions that cause distress in the lives of people around them. Both treat their own lives like those of heroines in fantastical works of fiction, with Miss Morland likening herself to a character in a Gothic novel and young Briony Tallis writing her own melodramatic stories and plays with central characters such as "spontaneous Arabella" based on herself. Richard Adams quotes