Regina Maria Roche (1764–1845) was an Irish Gothic novelist, best known for The Children of the Abbey (1796) and Clermont (1798).
Encouraged by the success of the pioneering Ann Radcliffe, she became a bestselling author in her own time.
However, after her fifth novel, The Nocturnal Visit, appeared in 1800, Roche suffered financial difficulties, having fallen afoul of a duplicitous solicitor.
[1] After bouts of depression, Roche died in relative obscurity in her native town at the age of 81.
The Children of the Abbey, a sentimental Gothic Romance, was one of the most popular novels of the 1790s.