"Whilst yet a boy I began to feel the dreadful symptoms of that mental malady, which baffles the skill of medicine, and for which wealth can purchase only temporary alleviation. For this complaint there is no precise English name-but, alas the foreign term is now naturalized in England.-Among the higher classes, whether in the wealthy, or the fashionable world, who is unacquainted with ennui?"
At a young age, the Earl of Glenthorn inherits a title, a large fortune, and estates in England and Ireland. But his enormous wealth provides no relief from his ennui, a state of...

This Palgrave Pivot offers new readings of Maria Edgeworth’s representations of slavery. It shows how Edgeworth employed satiric technique and intertextual allusion to represent discourses of slavery and abolition as a litmus test of character – one that she invites readers to use on themselves. Over the course of her career, Edgeworth repeatedly indicted hypocritical and hyperbolic misappropriation of the sentimental rhetoric that dominated the slavery debate. This book offers new readings of canonical Edgeworth texts as well as of largely neglected works, including:Whim for Whim,...