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
Charlotte Yonge
The young CY
seems to have been totally unlike her adult self: a noisy, excitable child with a great capacity for screaming.
Battiscombe, Georgina, and E. M. Delafield. Charlotte Mary Yonge: The Story of an Uneventful Life. Constable and Company.
43
Her parents followed the system of Richard
and Maria Edgeworth
for bringing...
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'...
Family and Intimate relationships
Maria Edgeworth
ME
's father, Richard Lovell Edgeworth
, was landowner, land-improver, educator, scientist, author, and the father of twenty-two children. ME
's youngest half-brother was forty-five years her junior.
Moynahan, Julian. Anglo-Irish. Princeton University Press.
15, 17
Family and Intimate relationships
Anna Seward
She was nearly fourteen when the five-year-old Honora Sneyd
, whose mother was dead, came to live in the Seward household.
Ashmun, Margaret. The Singing Swan. Yale University Press; H. Milford, Oxford University Press.
9-10
This early friendship was crucial to her. When Honora married Maria Edgeworth
's...
Family and Intimate relationships
Maria Edgeworth
In 1773 Maria was motherless for less than four months before she acquired the first of three successive stepmothers: Honora Sneyd
, with whom Richard Lovell Edgeworth
had recently fallen in love.
Butler, Marilyn. Maria Edgeworth: A Literary Biography. Clarendon.
41-2, 46
Honora...
Family and Intimate relationships
Anna Seward
At least in her mature years, AS
had a low opinion of marriage, though there were various stories of her nearly marrying (or wishing to marry) various men beginning with Erasmus Darwin
, then her...
Family and Intimate relationships
Anna Sewell
Mary (Wright) Sewell
was a highly successful writer of didactic poetry and moral tales for children. Her sentimental ballad Mother's Last Words (1860), sold over one million copies. A follower of educators Richard Lovell Edgeworth
Family and Intimate relationships
Maria Edgeworth
ME
was distracted from her writing by concern for her father
's health: he was suffering painful bouts of intestinal and kidney disease.
Butler, Marilyn. Maria Edgeworth: A Literary Biography. Clarendon.
233-4
Family and Intimate relationships
Maria Edgeworth
ME
suffered a blow she had long dreaded: the death of her father
.
Butler, Marilyn. Maria Edgeworth: A Literary Biography. Clarendon.
401
Friends, Associates
Joanna Baillie
On the other hand she was fully appreciative of Maria Edgeworth
, whom she first met on 16 May 1813. She sounded a little patronising about Edgeworth after this first meeting, but felt an immediate...
Intertextuality and Influence
Barbara Hofland
This novel handles remarkably the stock motif of the foundling, and the more unusual theme of an abusive marriage. (In a note at the end, BH
says that each of these is based on a...
Intertextuality and Influence
Maria Edgeworth
It opens with a breezy, antifeminist, adversarial Letter from a Gentleman to his Friend. The gentleman is hostile to female education and female authorship; his letter is based on one actually sent by Day
Intertextuality and Influence
Maria Edgeworth
She received two hundred pounds for it, twice as much as for the recent Castle Rackrent.
Butler, Marilyn. Maria Edgeworth: A Literary Biography. Clarendon.
492
She applied the genre-name moral tale, that same year, to an adult novel as well. Richard Lovell Edgeworth
Timeline
1770: The Lichfield Circle began to develop at...
Building item
1770
The Lichfield Circle began to develop at Lichfield in Staffordshire; the group advocated reform of women's education away from time-filling accomplishments such as japanning and toward intellectual learning.
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).
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.
Texts
Edgeworth, Richard Lovell, and Maria Edgeworth. A Letter to the Right Hon. the Earl of Charlemont. P. Byrne, 1797.
Edgeworth, Richard Lovell, and Maria Edgeworth. Essay on Irish Bulls. Joseph Johnson, 1802.
Edgeworth, Richard Lovell. Essays on Professional Education. Joseph Johnson, 1809.
Edgeworth, Maria, and Richard Lovell Edgeworth. Harrington, A Tale; and, Ormond, A Tale. R. Hunter, Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 1817.
Edgeworth, Richard Lovell, and Maria Edgeworth. Memoirs of Richard Lovell Edgeworth, Esq. R. Hunter, 1820.
Edgeworth, Maria, and Richard Lovell Edgeworth. Moral Tales for Young People. J. Johnson, 1801.
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, and Richard Lovell Edgeworth. Tales of Fashionable Life. J. Johnson, 1812.