page_title: Maria Edgeworth
section_title: Work
hierarchical_section_title: Maria Edgeworth / Work
caption_attribution_description: English: Library at Edgeworthstown House
context_page_description: Maria Edgeworth was a prolific Anglo-Irish writer of adults' and children's literature. She was one of the first realist writers in children's literature and was a significant figure in the evolution of the novel in Europe. She held views on estate management, politics and education, and corresponded with some of the leading literary and economic writers, including Sir Walter Scott and David Ricardo.
context_section_description: Edgeworth's early literary efforts have often been considered melodramatic rather than realistic. Recent scholarship, however, has uncovered the importance of Edgeworth's previously unpublished juvenilia manuscript, The Double Disguise (1786). In particular, The Double Disguise signals Edgeworth's turn toward realism and is now considered a seminal regional narrative predating Castle Rackrent (1800). In addition, Edgeworth wrote many children's novels that conveyed moral lessons to their audience (often in partnership with her friend Louise Swanton Belloc, a French writer, translator, and advocate for the education of women and children, whose many translations of Edgeworth's works were largely responsible for her popularity in France). One of her schoolgirl novels features a villain who wore a mask made from the skin of a dead man's face. Edgeworth's first published work was Letters for Literary Ladies in 1795. Her work, "An Essay on the Noble Science of Self-Justification" (1795) is written for a female audience in which she convinces women that the fair sex is endowed with an art of self-justification and women should use their gifts to continually challenge the force and power of men, especially their husbands, with wit and intelligence. It humorously and satirically explores the feminine argumentative method. This was followed in 1796 by her first children's book, The Parent's Assistant, which included Edgeworth's celebrated short story "The Purple Jar". The Parent's Assistant was influenced by her father's work and perspectives on children's education.
  Mr. Edgeworth, a well-known author and inventor, encouraged his daughter's career. At the height of her creative endeavours, Maria wrote, "Seriously it was to please my Father I first exerted myself to write, to please him I continued." Though the impetus for Maria's works, Mr. Edgeworth has been criticised for his insistence on approving and editing her work. The tales in The Parent's Assistant were approved by her father before he would allow them to be read to her younger siblings. It is speculated that her stepmother and siblings also helped in the editing process of Edgeworth's work.
  Practical Education (1798) is a progressive work on education that combines the ideas of Locke and Rousseau with scientific inquiry. Edgeworth asserts that "learning should be a positive experience and that the discipline of education is more important during the formative years than the acquisition of knowledge." The system attempted to "adapt both the curriculum and methods of teaching to the needs of the child; the endeavour to explain moral habits and the learning process through associationism; and most important, the effort to entrust the child with the responsibility for his own mental culture." The ultimate goal of Edgeworth's system was to create an independent thinker who understands the consequences of his or her actions.
  Her first novel, Castle Rackrent (1800) was written and submitted for anonymous publication in 1800 without her father's knowledge. It was an immediate success and firmly established Edgeworth's appeal. The book is a satire on Anglo-Irish landlords, before the year 1782, showing the need for more responsible management by the Irish landowning class. The story follows four generations of an Irish landholding family, the Rackrents. It is narrated by an Irish catholic worker on the estate, named Thady Quirk, and portrayed the rise of the catholic-Irish middle class.
  Belinda (1801), a 3-volume work published in London, was Maria Edgeworth's first full-length novel. It dealt with love, courtship, and marriage, dramatising the conflicts within her "own personality and environment; conflicts between reason and feeling, restraint and individual freedom, and society and free spirit." Belinda was also notable for its controversial depiction of interracial marriage between an African servant and an English farm-girl. Later editions of the novel, however, removed these sections.
  Tales of Fashionable Life (1809 and 1812) is a 2-series collection of short stories whic
caption: Library at Edgeworthstown House 1888
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