Maria Edgeworth (1767-1849) came to live in Ireland at the age of 15. The year was 1782, the same one in which Ireland achieved a short-lived parliamentary independence from English rule, and a year earlier than the setting of her first (widely considered her best) novel, Castle Rackrent. The Anglo-Irish Edgeworth family had held Irish lands since the reign of James I, somehow managing to maintain them despite a history of inept Edgeworths who, in the manner of the Rackrents, did their best to gamble, drink, and mismanage the estate away. In contrast, Maria’s father, Richard Lovell Edgeworth, was a conscientious landlord and a political progressive, reforming age-old feudal practices that oppressed tenants and made estates unprofitable. Richard Lovell Edgeworth was also a brilliant inventor and educational theorist who took great pains to educate his daughter. The two collaborated on works of educational theory (Practical Education; Professional Education) that are considered to be among the most important contributions to contemporary instruction. Also, based on her father’s ideas, Maria wrote stories designed to educate and improve children (The Parent’s Assistant, Early Lessons, Moral Tales, Popular Tales), and even her novels for adults show a strong didactic strain.
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