MARIA EDGEWORTH (1847)

Anglo-Irish writter known for her children´s stories and for her novels of Irish life, possibly the first examples of local colour and regionalism in English fiction.

She lived in England until 1782 when the family went to Edgeworthstown, northwest of Dublin where Maria then 15 and the eldest daughter assisted her father in managing his estate.

In this way she acquired the practical konwledge of rural economy and of the Irish peasantry that was to be the backbone of her novels. Domestic life at Edgeworthstown was busy and happy. Encouraged by her father Maria began her writting in the common sitting room where the 21 children in the family (his father Richard Edgeworth had four times married and had 22 children) provided material and audience for her stories. She published them in 1796 as The Parent´s Assistant. Even the intrusive moralizing attributed to her father´s editing dos not wholly suppress their vitality and the children who appear in them, especially the impetuous Rosamond, are the first real children in English literature since Shakespeare.

Her first novel Castle Rackrent (1800) written without her father´s interference reveals her gift for social observation, character sketch and authentic dialogue. It is free from Edgeworth´s lengthy lecturing but not from Maria´s own implicit reproach to irresponsible gentry.

Scott acknowledged his debt to Miss Edgeworth inn writing Waverley.

Her next work Belinda (1801), a society novel unfortunately marred by Edgeworth´s insistence on a happy ending was particularly admired by Jane Austen.

Miss Edgeworth never married. She had a wide acquaintance in literary and scientific circles. Between 1809 and 1812 she published her Tales of Fashionable Life in six volumes. They include one of her best novels The Absentee which focussed attention on a great contemporary abuse: absentee English landowning.

Before her father´s death in 1817 she published three more novels, two of them Patronage (1814) and Ormond (1817) of considerable power.

After 1817 she wrote less. She completed her father´s Memoirs (1820) and devoted herself to the estate. She enjoyed a European reputation and exchanged cordial visits with Scott. Her last years were saddened by the Irish famine of 1846 during which she worked for the relief of stricken peasants.

Miss Edgeworth´s achievement was considerable. Her humorous and well-balanced young heroines, her realistic children and her genuine appreciation of the Irish character were all new to fiction in her day and opened avenues for other writers.