How marvellously vivid it all is! every word tells as the generations pass before us. The very spirit of romantic Irish fidelity is incarnate in Thady. Jason Quirk represents the feline element, which also belongs to our extraordinary Celtic race. The little volume contains the history of a nation. It is a masterpiece which Miss Edgeworth has never surpassed. It is almost provoking to have so many details of other and less interesting stories, such as Early Lessons, A Knapsack, The Prussian Vase, etc., and to hear so little of these two books by which she will be best remembered.-excerpt from...

Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1744 1817) was a noted Irish educationalist, engineer and inventor. This two-volume autobiography, begun in 1808, was published in 1820. Edgeworth had abandoned the project in 1809, having covered the period to 1781, and it was completed after his death by his eldest daughter, a successful novelist. Maria Edgeworth and her father had co-authored educational works, and the experience of helping her father run their estate during her teens had provided material for her novels. Volume 2 of these memoirs was wholly written by her, though it contains excerpts from...

Large print edition, with easy-to-read text, of Edgeworths classic work.

With her satire on Anglo-Irish landlords in Castle Rackrent (1800), Maria Edgeworth pioneered the regional novel and inspired Sir Walter Scott's Waverley (1814). Politically risky, stylistically innovative, and wonderfully entertaining, the novel changes the focus of conflict in Ireland from religion to class, and boldly predicts the rise of the Irish Catholic bourgeoisie. The second edition now includes new notes informed by the latest scholarship.
About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe....

1 January 2018 will be the 250th anniversary of Maria Edgeworth's birth. Valerie Pakenham's sparkling new selection of over four hundred letters, many hitherto unpublished, will help to celebrate her memory.