Maria Edgeworth was one of the most popular writers of the early nineteenth century. Although her fame during her lifetime was based on her adult novels, especially those set in Ireland, Edgeworth also published many influential stories for children, and these stories outlasted her adult fiction. In writing for children, Edgeworth tried to demonstrate how children could be educated for a useful and moral life. Unlike some of the other didactic writers of children's stories, Edgeworth was able to make her child characters realistic and natural. Her stories were appealing enough to be kept in print through the nineteenth century and into the first half of the twentieth century.

Maria Edgeworth was born on 1 January 1768 (the date is sometimes given as 1767, but Marilyn Butler and Christina Colvin establish 1768 as the correct date) in Oxfordshire at the home of her maternal grandfather, Paul Elers. Her father, Richard Lovell Edgeworth...