The Gothic Bildungsroman

In one of several inset tales in the anonymously-published Amasina, or the American Foundling (1804), Theophilus Mountfort, the eldest son of a landed family with an estate outside Tuam, Co. Galway, is urged by his cousin and fiancée, Adelaide Ashenhurst, to study “the laws and constitution of your country, that, when elected one of the representatives, you may act according to the real interest of the sacred trust devolved to you.” 1 The fruits of his efforts are never described, as his story – recounted in an old manuscript given to the heroine of the narrative proper and dated 21 July 1767 – becomes dominated by the machinations of his avaricious father. Disapproving of his son’s proposed marriage to Adelaide, Henry Mountfort convinces the latter that Theophilus has been unfaithful, reducing the girl to “lunatic wanderings” (Amasina, 2: 160).