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 a portion of the novel's last sentence for the epigraph to Chapter 50 in his "Watership Down"; the reference to the General is felicitous, as the villain in "Watership Down" is also a General. The book, also, contains an early historical reference to baseball. It is found in the first chapter of the novel, describing the interest of the heroine : "...Catherine, who had by nature nothing heroic about her, should prefer cricket, baseball, riding on horseback, and running about the country...". It is not the earliest reference to the term, which is presently believed to be in a 1744