Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Maria Edgeworth
-
Standard Name: Edgeworth, Maria
Birth Name: Maria Edgeworth
Pseudonym: M. E.
Pseudonym: M. R. I. A.
ME
wrote, during the late eighteenth century and especially the early nineteenth century, long and short fiction for adults and children, as well as works about the theory and practice of pedagogy. Her reputation as an Irish writer, and as the inventor of the regional novel, has never waned; it was long before she became outmoded as a children's writer; her interest as a feminist writer is finally being explored.
In addition to Catharine Cappe
's work on Sunday schools and versions of fairy stories by Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy
, the magazine reviewed work by a whole library of didactic, pedagogical, or improving writers, reprinted as...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Melesina Trench
About the first twenty pages are occupied by MT
's early reminiscences, probably written not long after her first husband's death: she frankly recorded her emotional disturbance over that event.
Trench, Melesina. The Remains of the Late Mrs. Richard Trench. Editor Trench, Richard Chenevix, Parker and Bourn.
18
Later pages mix letters...
Friends, Associates
Catharine Parr Traill
After arriving in Peterborough, CPT
became a close friend of Frances Stewart
, an Irish-born chronicler of pioneer life who was related by marriage to Maria Edgeworth
.
Gray, Charlotte. Sisters in the Wilderness: The Lives of Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill. Viking.
80
Education
Angela Thirkell
Initially, Angela was educated at home, where her mother began teaching her to read on her third birthday. She also had a succession of French and German governesses, who taught her French and German as...
Family and Intimate relationships
Jemima Tautphoeus
The novelist Maria Edgeworth
was her cousin. JT
, who was forty when Edgeworth died, called her one of the most interesting people it was possible to know.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Literary responses
Sydney Owenson, Lady Morgan
Meanwhile the vogue for The Wild Irish Girl was immense: Dublin ladies were wearing scarlet cloaks and golden bodkins, as Glorvina and as Owenson did.
Campbell, Mary. Lady Morgan: The Life and Times of Sydney Owenson. Pandora.
71-2
She became (and remained more or less all her...
Literary responses
Sydney Owenson, Lady Morgan
The review in the Critical made nostalgic reference to pleasure in Morgan's The Wild Irish Girl, and continued: As a national writer, we cannot too much admire her sentiments; and, as a descriptive writer...
Literary responses
Sydney Owenson, Lady Morgan
Two Belgian ministers of state wrote to express their appreciation.
Sydney Owenson, Lady Morgan,. Lady Morgan’s Memoirs. Editors Dixon, William Hepworth and Geraldine Jewsbury, AMS Press.
2: 391-2
Maria Edgeworth
delighted even in the improbabilities of this book, and called its heroine wonderfully clever and preposterous—a Belgian Corinne.
Campbell, Mary. Lady Morgan: The Life and Times of Sydney Owenson. Pandora.
222
The parallel...
Textual Features
Lady Louisa Stuart
LLS
's letters to Scott
show her to have been a trusted and perceptive critic of his novels, which she often read before publication. On The Heart of Mid-Lothian she sent him a major critique...
Education
Harriet Beecher Stowe
At the age of six Harriet Beecher began attending a primary school. Then, at the age of eight, she entered the Litchfield Female Academy
, a boarding school founded by Sarah Pierce
in 1792. One...
That she later wrote an introduction to the 1858 edition of Henson's 1849 narrative of slavery is an example...
Literary responses
Germaine de Staël
The Critical Review boldly announced: This is one of the most fascinating novels we have lately met with—even though it continued, we abominate both its religion and its morals.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall.
2d ser. 38 (1803): 48
Friends, Associates
Mary Somerville
The Somervilles' circle was not purely a scientific one, and MS
became a friend of the actress Lady Becher
and with the Baillie family. She accompanied Joanna Baillie
to the opening of the latter's play...
Literary responses
Mary Somerville
The text was praised by Maria Edgeworth
for hav[ing] enlarged my conception of the sublimity of the universe, beyond any ideas I had ever before been enable to form.
Somerville, Mary. Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville. Editor Somerville, Martha, Roberts Brothers.
204
After reading the preliminary dissertation,...
Intertextuality and Influence
Charlotte Smith
Sales were unexpectedly brisk. Reviews were positive and most emphasised that the stories here were true.
Smith, Charlotte. “Introduction”. The Works of Charlotte Smith, edited by Michael Garner et al., Pickering and Chatto, p. xxix - xxxvii.
xxxvi
The Critical Review, however, thought they would be equally interesting whether they should turn out to be...
Timeline
No timeline events available.
Texts
Edgeworth, Maria. Orlandino. W. and R. Chambers, 1848.
Edgeworth, Maria. Patronage. Baldwin and Cradock, 1813.
Edgeworth, Maria. Popular Tales. Joseph Johnson, 1804.
Edgeworth, Maria, and Richard Lovell Edgeworth. Practical Education. J. Johnson, 1798.
Edgeworth, Richard Lovell, and Maria Edgeworth. Readings on Poetry. R. Hunter, 1816.
Edgeworth, Maria. Tales and Miscellaneous Pieces. R. Hunter, 1825.
Edgeworth, Maria. Tales and Novels. Baldwin and Cradock, 1832.
Edgeworth, Maria, and Richard Lovell Edgeworth. Tales of Fashionable Life. J. Johnson, 1812.
Edgeworth, Maria. The Modern Griselda. Joseph Johnson, 1805.
Edgeworth, Maria. The Parent’s Assistant. J. Johnson, 1796.
