Books by Maria Edgeworth

Maria Edgeworth was a pioneer of realist children's literature. This critical edition reveals the range of her writing for children, ranging from stories for very young children to tales for young adults, and includes The Purple Jar, The Good Aunt and The Grateful Negro. Annotated with a comprehensive introduction based on original research.

Richard Lovell Edgeworth's influential two-volume work of 1788, written with his daughter Maria, derives its authority and innovative features from Edgeworth's own experiences of raising twenty children. Arguing for the formative character of early childhood experiences in general, Volume 1 deals with areas including play, obedience and learning.

With her satire on Anglo-Irish landlords in Castle Rackrent (1800), Maria Edgeworth pioneered the regional novel and inspired Sir Walter Scott's Waverley (1814).

Thady Quirk, devoted steward to the decaying estate of the Rackrent family, narrates a riotous story of four generations of a dying dynasty in Castle Rackrent (1800). Thady will defend his masters to the end, but eventually his naivety and blind loyalty cause him to ignore the warning signs as the family's excesses lead them to ruin. This volume also includes Ennui, the entertaining 'confessions' of the Earl of Glenthorn, a bored, spoiled aristocrat. Desperate to be free from 'the demon of ennui', Glenthorn's quest for happiness takes him through violence and revolution, and leads to intriguing twists of fate. Both novels offer a darkly comic and satirical expos of the Irish class system, and a portrait of a nation in turmoil.