Although not as well known an author as her friend and inspiration Maria Edgeworth, Anna Maria Hall must certainly be recognized as one of the most prolific of the early-Victorian Anglo-Irish writers. With the occasional help of her husband, Samuel Carter Hall, she wrote and edited dozens of books, including sketches, children's books, novels, and plays. Most of these were about the foibles of her Irish compatriots. While she was never cruelly satiric in her portrayal of the Irish peasant class, her short, fictitious portraits did not stray far from didacticism, and it was in this vein that she was best known.

An only child, Anna Maria Fielding was born in Dublin on 6 January 1800. Her mother's family was descended from the Huguenots, who immigrated to Ireland to escape religious persecution in France. There is no record of her father, who apparently died before she was born. When she...