Maria Edgeworth's Letters From Ireland

by Maria Edgeworth, Valerie Pakenham (Editor)

Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849), one of the most celebrated authors of her day both in Ireland and England, is best known for her novels 'Castle Rackrent' (1800) and 'The Absentee' (1812). A contemporary of Jane Austen, Sir Walter Scott and Lord Byron, her prolific correspondence, penned largely from her home at Edgeworthstown, County Longford, is filled with her vibrant personality, warmth and wit. Marking the 250th anniversary of her birth, this is the first time Maria Edgeworth's letters from Ireland, many hitherto unpublished, have been revisited in any depth. Her letters span sixty years of momentous political change in Ireland -- the heady time of Grattan's Parliament and the perils of the 1798 Rebellion, the rise of O'Connell, the struggle for Catholic Emancipation, and the Great Famine for which she provided relief. Her storytelling and descriptive powers reveal an extraordinary personal understanding of the era. The wealth of detail in these letters is astonishing. They engage with science and literature, history and high-level European gossip, and the domestic concerns of life at Edgeworthstown itself. Maria, a proto-feminist, helped educate her siblings and became sole manager of the family estate. Humphrey Davy, William Rowan Hamilton, Madame de Stael, Francis Beaufort, Wordsworth and the Duke of Wellington stroll through these pages as the Edgeworth story unfolds. The reader is also granted privileged access to her ever-expanding family circle of three stepmothers and twenty-two siblings – most of whom Maria outlived. Among these were gifted artists, whose previously unseen drawings and sketches embellish this volume, while the editor's extensive commentary lends crucial context to this cultural treasure trove.

Genres: Ireland, Nonfiction

563 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 11, 2017

About the author

Maria Edgeworth was an Anglo-Irish gentry-woman, born in Oxfordshire and later resettling in County Longford. She eventually took over the management of her father's estate in Ireland and dedicated herself to writing novels that encouraged the kind treatment of Irish tenants and the poor by their landlords.

Reviews

[Nicola Pierce · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh, I am going to miss this book. I don't normally read letters as I feel that you only get a part of any story at any one time. However, I couldn't resist this gorgeous book when I saw it in my local bookshop before Christmas. I fully expected not to read it for years and, also, when I did get around to reading it, that I would spend the time wishing it was a diary or a memoir - wrong on both counts. Once I opened it last week I couldn't stop reading it and these letters are so wonderful, so crammed with information and tell entire stories in one go, that I had to remind myself that I wasn't actually reading Edgeworth's diary. I also had to remind myself that the letters were almost 200 years old, her voice is so vibrant and engaging. Apart from anything else, they are a compelling insight into Ireland's history, taking in Daniel O'Connell, the Act of Union and then, the Famine. Her life was busy - with writing and 21 half/siblings (her father was a man of many passions!!) - and I loved that she wrote plenty about the books she was reading. Highly recommend it!