Roland Cashel

Roland Cashel was authored by the Irish novelist Charles Lever and originally serialized between 1848 and 1849. Emerging from a period of significant political and social upheaval in Ireland, the novel reflects Lever’s characteristic interest in the complexities of the Anglo-Irish experience and the mobility of the nineteenth-century gentleman.

The work was famously illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne, widely known by his pen name Phiz, who had previously achieved immense acclaim for his long-standing collaboration with Charles Dickens. Browne’s plates sought to capture the picaresque energy and dramatic tension of Lever’s narrative, and his contribution was instrumental in the visual identity of the original serialized editions, which were received as a prominent contribution to the literature of the era.