Maria Edgeworth

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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.
Watercolour portrait of youthful-looking Maria Edgeworth by John Downman, 1807. She sits on a straight-backed chair, wearing a lacy cap with a blue bow, and a blue, empire-style dress over white, high-necked, gauzy linen.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Dedications Catharine Maria Sedgwick
CMS 's first novel, A New-England Tale; or, Sketches of New-England Character and Manners, was licensed: it appeared anonymously that year, with a title-page stanza from Robert Burns , dedicated to Maria Edgeworth .
Sedgwick, Catharine Maria. A New-England Tale. Bliss and White, 1822.
prelims
Damon-Bach, Lucinda L., and Victoria Clements, editors. “Editorial Materials”. Catharine Maria Sedgwick: Critical Perspectives, Northeastern University Press, 2003, p. various pages.
xxxv
Education Catherine Carswell
After her discovery of literature, CC 's early reading included many pious books: Bunyan 's Pilgrim's Progress, Foxe 's Book of Martyrs, and Lives of the Saints. She also read widely in...
Education Katharine Tynan
Owing to what KT calls an extraordinary wave of Puritanism throughout the Irish Catholic Church,
Tynan, Katharine. Twenty-Five Years: Reminiscences. Smith, Elder, 1913.
45
her reading was censored: her mother forbade her to read Mary Elizabeth Braddon 's Aurora Floyd (1863). She thought...
Education Mary Cowden Clarke
MCC later remembered her responsibility, when very young, of escorting her two next younger brothers to their school.
Clarke, Mary Cowden. My Long Life. Dodd, Mead, 1896.
10
Unlike them, she began her education at home. She writes fondly about the rich array of...
Education Frances Power Cobbe
FPC received lessons from her nurse Martha Jones and from her mother . Her reading included Sarah Trimmer 's History of the Robins, Anna Barbauld 's Lessons for Children, and poetry by Jane Taylor
Education Georgiana Fullerton
She could read by four-and-a-half, and recalls an early admiration for hymns by Anna Letitia Barbauld and Maria Edgeworth . Julius Cæsar, the first Shakespearean play that she saw, left a lasting impression. Later...
Education Elizabeth Gaskell
Until the age of eleven, Elizabeth was taught at home by her Aunt Hannah Lumb . As befitting the Unitarian emphasis on personal freedom and rationality, she read widely, and was encouraged to make her...
Education Medbh McGuckian
At university, she was taught by Seamus Heaney , and met other poets including Michael Longley , Paul Muldoon , and Ciaran Carson . Her MA thesis on Irish nineteenth-century writers and Gothic fiction dealt...
Education Rebecca Harding Davis
Influenced by her mother's linguistic virtuosity and her father's storytelling and love of classic literature, Rebecca grew up well acquainted with early American history (whose evidence lay close at hand) and with the stories...
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...
Education Mary Russell Mitford
MRM was said to have learned to read by the time she was three. In January 1806 she got through fifty-five volumes, including books by Sarah Harriet Burney , Maria Edgeworth , Elizabeth Hamilton ,...
Education Elizabeth Barrett Browning
EBB 's early immersion in fairy stories and popular tales was followed by a more ambitious course of reading that began around the age of seven with history, classical poetry, and some of Shakespeare 's...
Education Anna Sewell
For most of her childhood, AS was educated at home by her mother, as the Sewell family could not afford formal training for either of the children. Mary Sewell believed strongly in the Edgeworth s'...
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...
Education Beatrix Potter
Beatrix, educated at home and six years older than her brother, was a solitary child. She had few toys; but she became deeply interested in science, and was also, from an early age, devoted to...

Timeline

About 1766: Printer and engraver John Spilsbury perfected...

Building item

About 1766

Printer and engraver John Spilsbury perfected the dissected map which became the forerunner of the jigsaw puzzle.
Drabble, Margaret. “A Day Out in Kew”. Jane Austen Sings the Blues, edited by Nora Foster Stovel, University of Alberta Press, 2009, pp. 57-65.
58-9

1783-89: Thomas Day anonymously published The History...

Writing climate item

1783-89

Thomas Day anonymously published The History of Sandford and Merton, a didactic book for children in three volumes (the second published in 1786).
Butler, Marilyn. “Edgeworth’s Stern Father: Escaping Thomas Day, 1795-1801”. Tradition in Transition: Women Writers, Marginal Texts, and the Eighteenth-Century Canon, edited by Alvaro Ribeiro and James G. Basker, Clarendon, 1996, pp. 75-93.
82-3
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 5 series.
68 (1789): 327
Cox, Michael, editor. The Oxford Chronology of English Literature. Oxford University Press, 2002, 2 vols.

By early March 1792: According to Maria Edgeworth, 25,000 families...

National or international item

By early March 1792

According to Maria Edgeworth , 25,000 families in England had joined in the boycott against West Indian, that is slave-grown, sugar.
McCarthy, William. Anna Letitia Barbauld, Voice of the Enlightenment. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008.
300

2 July 1798: The conservative Lady's Monthly Museum: or...

Writing climate item

2 July 1798

The conservative Lady's Monthly Museum: or polite repository of amusement and instruction published its first number. Sometimes called The Ladies' Monthly Museum . . . it ran until the 1830s.
Watson, George, and Ian Roy Wilson, editors. The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature. Cambridge University Press, 1969, 5 vols., http://U of A, HSS Ruth N Flr 1 Ref.
Beetham, Margaret. A Magazine of Her Own?: Domesticity and Desire in the Woman’s Magazine, 1800-1914. Routledge, 1996.
216
Pitcher, Edward W. The "Lady’s Monthly Museum". First Series: 1798-1806. Edwin Mellen Press, 2000.
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.

10 May to 14 August 1813: The British Institution held a retrospective...

Building item

10 May to 14 August 1813

The British Institution held a retrospective exhibition of 141 paintings by Sir Joshua Reynolds at its Pall Mall Picture Galleries: a major event of the social season, both cultural and patriotic.
Barchas, Janine. What Jane Saw. 2013, http://www.whatjanesaw.org.

15 July 1819: Byron began to publish in instalments (opening...

Writing climate item

15 July 1819

Byron began to publish in instalments (opening with cantos one and two) his satirical mock-epic poem Don Juan; he left it unfinished at his death.
Chandler, James. England in 1819: The Politics of Literary Culture and the Case of Romantic Historicism. University of Chicago Press, 1998.
354
Cox, Michael, editor. The Oxford Chronology of English Literature. Oxford University Press, 2002, 2 vols.

9 December 1826: The Literary Gazette printed a Key to Marianne...

Women writers item

9 December 1826

The Literary Gazette printed a Key to Marianne Spencer Hudson 's silver-fork novel, Almack's (titled after the well-known elite gentlemen's club of the same name), which had already reached its second edition this year. The...

1 January 1830: J. W. Croker for the first time used the...

Writing climate item

1 January 1830

J. W. Croker for the first time used the word Conservative to refer to the party which for a century and half had been called Tory.
The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. Compact Edition, Oxford University Press, 1982.
under Liberal
The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. Compact Edition, Oxford University Press, 1982.
under Conservative

1835: Ann Fraser-Tytler's children's novel Mary...

Women writers item

1835

Ann Fraser-Tytler 's children's novel Mary and Florence; or, Grave and Gay was anonymously published at London.
Hesselink, Sebastiaan S., and Agnes M. L. Kerssemakers. The Children’s World of Learning 1480 - 1880. Antiquariaat Forum, 2002, 3 vols.
1: 225, 249
OCLC WorldCat. 1992–1998, http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/content/worldcat/. Accessed 1999.

9 August 1838: The Hampstead circulating library, intended...

Writing climate item

9 August 1838

The Hampstead circulating library, intended for the middling and lower ranks, which had stocked no novels on principle except those of Scott and Edgeworth , found these were borrowed so much more often than...

17 February 1847: The Whittington Club (named after the poor...

Building item

17 February 1847

The Whittington Club (named after the poor boy who became Lord Mayor of London) held its first meeting. Unlike traditional gentlemen's clubs, it welcomed women and lower-middle-class men.
Woodring, Carl Ray. Victorian Samplers: William and Mary Howitt. University of Kansas Press, 1952.
122

Spring 1852: Samuel Orchart Beeton (later the husband...

Building item

Spring 1852

Samuel Orchart Beeton (later the husband of Isabella Mary Beeton) began publishing the Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine, which stimulated the spread of home dressmaking.
Palmer, Alan, and Veronica Palmer. The Chronology of British History. Century, 1992.
273
White, Cynthia L. Women’s Magazines 1693-1968. Michael Joseph, 1970.
44-6
Winship, Janice. Inside Women’s Magazines. Pandora, 1987.
13
Freeman, Sarah. Isabella and Sam: The Story of Mrs Beeton. Coward, McCann and Geoghegan, 1977.
70-1, 75
Freeman, Sarah. Isabella and Sam: The Story of Mrs Beeton. Coward, McCann and Geoghegan, 1977.
75-9, 133

By Christmas 1869: Francis Galton, mathematician, scientist,...

Writing climate item

By Christmas 1869

Francis Galton , mathematician, scientist, and eugenicist, published Hereditary Genius: An Enquiry into its Laws and Consequences,
Saturday Review. Chawton.
28.739 (25 December 1869): 832-3

April 1879: James Murray—editor since 1 March of what...

Writing climate item

April 1879

James Murray —editor since 1 March of what was to become the Oxford English Dictionary—issued an Appeal for readers to supply illustrative quotations.
Winchester, Simon. The Meaning of Everything. Oxford University Press, 2003.
93, 107, 109

Texts

Edgeworth, Richard Lovell, and Maria Edgeworth. A Letter to the Right Hon. the Earl of Charlemont. P. Byrne, 1797.
Edgeworth, Maria. Belinda. J. Johnson, 1801, 3 vols.
Edgeworth, Maria. Belinda. Editor Ní Chuilleanáin, Eiléan, J. M. Dent and Sons, 1993.
Edgeworth, Maria. Belinda. Oxford University Press, 1994.
Edgeworth, Maria. Castle Rackrent. J. Johnson, 1800.
Edgeworth, Maria. Comic Dramas. R. Hunter, 1817.
Edgeworth, Maria. Continuation of Early Lessons. J. Johnson, 1814, 2 vols.
Leadbeater, Mary, and Maria Edgeworth. Cottage Dialogues among the Irish Peasantry. J. Johnson, 1813, 2 vols.
Edgeworth, Maria. Early Lessons. Joseph Johnson, 1801, 10 parts.
Edgeworth, Richard Lovell, and Maria Edgeworth. Essay on Irish Bulls. Joseph Johnson, 1802.
Edgeworth, Maria, and Richard Lovell Edgeworth. Harrington, A Tale; and, Ormond, A Tale. R. Hunter, Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 1817, 3 vols.
Edgeworth, Maria. Helen. R. Bentley, 1834, 3 vols.
Watson, George, and Maria Edgeworth. “Introduction”. Castle Rackrent, Oxford University Press, 1964, p. vii - xxv.
Figes, Eva, and Maria Edgeworth. “Introduction”. Belinda, Pandora, 1986, p. vii - xi.
Figes, Eva, and Maria Edgeworth. “Introduction”. Patronage, Pandora, 1986, p. ix - xi.
Gee, Maggie, and Maria Edgeworth. “Introduction”. Helen, Pandora Press, 1987, p. vii - xii.
McCormack, William John et al. “Introduction”. The Absentee, The World’s Classics, Oxford University Press, 1988, p. ix - xlvii.
Myers, Mitzi, and Maria Edgeworth. “Introduction”. The Little Dog Trusty; The Orange Man; and, The Cherry Orchard, Augustan Reprints, Augustan Reprint Society, 1990, p. iii - xiii.
Butler, Marilyn, and Maria Edgeworth. “Introduction”. Castle Rackrent; and, Ennui, Penguin, 1992, pp. 1-54.
Edgeworth, Maria. Leonora. Joseph Johnson, 1806, 2 vols.
Edgeworth, Maria. Letters for Literary Ladies. J. Johnson, 1795, 3 pts.
Edgeworth, Maria. Letters for Literary Ladies. Cambridge University Press, 2010, http://www.cambridge.org/series/sSeries.asp?code=CLOR.
Edgeworth, Maria et al. Letters of Maria Edgeworth and Anna Letitia Barbauld. Editor Scott, Walter Sidney, Golden Cockerel Press, 1953.
Edgeworth, Maria. Little Plays for Children. R. Hunter, 1827.
Edgeworth, Richard Lovell, and Maria Edgeworth. Memoirs of Richard Lovell Edgeworth, Esq. R. Hunter, 1820, 2 vols.