The Works of Maria Edgeworth

Volume 1 General Introduction, Castle Rackrent (1832), Irish Bulls (1832), Ennui (1832) Castle Rackrent Edgeworth's first and best known novel. Acclaimed as the pioneer novel in English, Edgeworth demonstrates a sparkling sensitivity to her complex range of characters: her field here is the life of the 'big house' late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Ireland, seen through the declining Rackrents and the self-reforming Lord Glenthorn. The introduction and notes provide a fresh and detailed appreciation of the writer's allusive powers, her immersion in the events and newspapers of the day, her European consciousness, and her ironic commentary on Irish-English relations. Volume 2 Belinda (1801) Belinda is one of the finest, most complex of Edgeworth's works of fiction and probably the closest to those of her younger contemporary, Jane Austen. Austen singles it out in Northanger Abbey (c. 1803, pub. 1818) as one of the three best English novels. 'It is only...Belinda...only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of it's varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour are conveyed to the world in the best chosen language.' Volume 3 Leonora (1825), Harrington (1817) The two short novels of rare quality, both tackling themes particularly difficult for women authors. Leonora is an epistolary novel, similar to Austen's Lady Susan, centred on a sexual adventuress. Harrington is a dramatisation of anti-Semitism and xenophobia. The opening chapters, which narrate the nightmarish episodes of the hero's disturbed childhood are the best of their kind before Jane Eyre and Oliver Twist. The novel is a response to a letter from an American Jewish woman which criticised Edgeworth's portrayal of Jews in previous works of fiction, particularly in her children's stories. Volume 4 Manoeuvring (1832), Vivian (1832) Manoeuvring is a witty tale which examines the vagaries of marriage. The narrative pays particular attention to women's conversational strategies and verbal manoeuvres. Vivian considers the power of education, and asks if good instruction can be enough in itself. The plot dramatises questions of family, relationships, marriage and individual responsibility. Volume 5 The Absentee (1832), Madame de Fleury (1832), Emilie de Coulanges (1832) The Absentee is one of the Irish tales and Edgeworth's personal favourite. This volume brings together two of the writer's moral tales, Madame de Fleury and Emilie de Coulanges, neither of which have been published before in an annotated edition. All three of these tales belong to the Tales of Fashionable Life, in which Edgeworth attempts to reform the higher echelons by evoking their pettiness and their excesses. Volumes 6 & 7 Patronage (1814) Patronage is a long and complex novel of ideas, in which high politics, male careerism, female integrity, and the slow intrusion of the past into the present all combine in a richly narrated story set in England but implicating continental and Irish affairs. It met with a hostile reception which greatly affected subsequent editions. Here the first edition is re-published for the first time. Volume 8 Ormond (1832) Ormond, last of Edgeworth's major studies of Ireland, asks whether justice or generosity is the better means of managing an estate. It occupies an important place in Edgeworth's sustained speculations on education and identity. Its hero is one of Edgeworth's best-drawn characters, and its techniques reflect the growing sophistication of Edgeworth's writing in later years. Volume 9 Helen (1834) The last of her novels, Helen, was much admired in the nineteenth century. It is, for example, an important source for Gaskell's Wives and Daughters. As a tale of deception and intrigue, it is both psychologically searching and stylistically complex, and deserves a much wider audience amongst feminist critics and scholars of the nineteenth century alike. This edition is based upon the first edition of 1834 and the manuscript copy in the British Museum. Volume 10 Selected short fiction From the Parent's Assistant (1800): 'Lazy Lawrence'; 'Waste Not, Want Not'; 'Forgive and Forget'; 'Simple Susan'; 'The Mimic'; 'The Orphans'; 'The Basket Woman'; 'The White Pigeon'; from Moral Tales (1801): 'Forester'; 'Angelina' These are Edgeworth's non pedagogical tales for children. They are pioneering evocations of the world of the child, as seen thought the eyes of children themselves. In addition the volume will include the manuscript play 'Whim for Whim' Volume 11 Practical Education (1798) The text is that of the first edition, not the second (1801), where the strongly secular approach of the first edition was toned down by the addition of religious material. Practical Education is co-authored by Maria's father Richard Lovell Edgeworth. The Edgeworth's educational method was worked out within a large family, not by R L Edgeworth alone but by a team including three of his four wives and several of his older children, headed by Maria. Its careful testing and recording of lessons makes it both a teaching manual and a pioneering classic of modern pedagogy, and it won an immediate reputation on the continent as well as in Britain. Volume 12 From Popular Tales (1804): 'Lame Jervas'; 'The Grateful Negro'; From Early Lessons (1801): 'Harry and Lucy'; 'Rosamond'; 'Frank'; 'The Little Dog Trusty'; 'The Orange Man'; 'The Cherry Orchard'; index of places and names to volumes 1-12 In addition to writing much of Practical Education herself, Maria Edgeworth's main literary contribution to the family's educational project are her fresh, often surprisingly up-to-date 'Lessons' on all subjects, published in 1801 under the collective title Early Lessons.