Maria Edgeworth:

A Children’s Storybook Writer to the First Irish

Female Novelist

“The human heart, at whatever age, opens

to the heart that opens in return.”

Maria Edgeworth

Early Childhood

•Born January 1, 1767

•Mother was still an undergrad and 19 years of age

•4 siblings to her own mother

•1 died as a child, shortly followed by their mother (Maria was 6)

•Her father remarried in about 4 months

•He was married a total of 4 times through out Maria’s life before he died

•A total of 21 siblings to her 4“mothers” 18 of which lived past the age of 2

Maria’s House

• Maria read/wrote children stories as a way to teach her younger siblings important things in life

• At 15, Maria became her father’s intellectual cohort and moved in 1782 to Ireland

About Maria Edgeworth (The Writer) Maria and her father wrote the joint production

of Practical Education ◦ In 1798 which she described as “the joy and pride

of my life”

Stories and Other Works Castle Rackrent was

first published in 1800◦ It is said that this

novel is the first Irish Novel which also makes her the first female Irish novelist

Other works:◦ Belinda

MARIA

EDGEWOR

TH

&

CASTLE

RACKRENT

What is meant by the Anglo-Irish? ~The Privileged Upper Class in Ireland, decedents of Protestant Ascendancy, referring to the political, economic, and social domination by a minority of great landowners, establishment clergy, and professionals.

What is meant by the Irish Catholics? ~In Castle Rackrent, Thady Quirk is an IC, whom has divided loyalties and a very limited power, the under class.

The story takes place before 1782, so that it did not seem as though the Anglo-Irish criticized and condemned the IC after the Catholic Emancipation Act.

The castle symbolizes power, and authority and rackrent means the highest rent that can be earned on a property.

Final Years“The human heart, at whatever age, opens to the heart that opens in return.”

Maria and her final stepmother created a bond of friendship that last fifty-one years

After many years of being sick Maria died in stepmother’s arms in 1849