Essay from the year 2013 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 17, University of Rennes 2, language: English, abstract: Maria Edgeworth's Caste Rackrent was published in 1800 at the moment of political union between Ireland and Great Britain. This short novel was the first of her Irish tales. Set before 1782, a momentous period for the independence of the Dublin parliament, Thady Quirk, a servant in a big house tells us of four generations of the Rackrent family. As the Irish Catholic narrator, he recounts the decline of this Protestant landowning family who stems from Maria Edgeworth's own background. Thady's stories describe how the Irish middle class rose because of mismanagement by the Protestant elite. The novel represents a key moment in the enlargement of the autonomy of women’s authorship. Narrated from a colonial point of view, Castle Rackrent indicates Edgeworth's hybridity in regard to her “Anglo-Irishness” and heralds the beginnings of a reflection on Irish nationhood and the salient function of women in the story. My analysis will revolve around the ways in which women in Castle Rackrent demonstrate ambivalence in terms of their presence as victims and as characters whose socio-political weight indicates their evolution. Emphasis will be laid on how women are regarded as victims of a patriarchal system in which, at the same time, they use as a model to acquire economic independence while the landlords fall from grace and lose their prestige.

In eighteenth-century Ireland, a privileged class of Anglo-Irish landowners known as the “Protestant Ascendancy” lived on great estates, with the mostly-Catholic Irish as their tenants and servants. Maria Edgeworth was part of this Anglo-Irish aristocracy. Castle Rackrent, her best known novel, satirizes the failures and follies of her Anglo-Irish peers, their mismanagement of their estates, and their abuse of their Irish tenants. The narrator of Castle Rackrent is Thady Quirk, whose family has served on the Rackrent estate for generations. Thady relates the life stories of four successive lords of Castle Rackrent and how their individual character and personality affect the lives and families that depend on them. Castle Rackrent was one of the first historical novels written in English, and Walter Scott later cited it as inspiration for his own Scottish historical novels. Edgeworth included two sets of explanatory notes on aspects of Irish life and culture for her English readers, footnotes in the main text and a “glossary” added in the second edition. These have been merged into a single set of endnotes in this Standard Ebooks edition. This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.

On the eve of his coming of age, a young Lord begins to see the truth of his parents' lives: his mother cannot buy her way into society no matter how hard he tries, and his father is being ruined by her continued attempts. The young Lord then travels to his home in Ireland, encountering adventure on the way, and discovers that the native residents are being exploited in his father's absence.

Essay from the year 2013 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 17, University of Rennes 2, language: English, abstract: Maria Edgeworth's Caste Rackrent was published in 1800 at the moment of political union between Ireland and Great Britain. This short novel was the first of her Irish tales. Set before 1782, a momentous period for the independence of the Dublin parliament, Thady Quirk, a servant in a big house tells us of four generations of the Rackrent family. As the Irish Catholic narrator, he recounts the decline of this Protestant landowning family who stems from Maria Edgeworth's own background. Thady's stories describe how the Irish middle class rose because of mismanagement by the Protestant elite. The novel represents a key moment in the enlargement of the autonomy of women's authorship. Narrated from a colonial point of view, Castle Rackrent indicates Edgeworth's hybridity in regard to her "Anglo-Irishness" and heralds the beginnings of a reflection on Irish nationhood and the salient function of women in the story. My analysis will revolve around the ways in which women in Castle Rackrent demonstrate ambivalence in terms of their presence as victims and as characters whose socio-political weight indicates their evolution. Emphasis will be laid on how women are regarded as victims of a patriarchal system in which, at the same time, they use as a model to acquire economic independence while the landlords fall from grace and lose their prestige.

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Leonora" by Maria Edgeworth. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

Lord Glenthorn is bored and lacking oomph. But before you feel sorry for him, it is worth knowing that he has a pile of money, a grand title, estates in England and Ireland and no stress. That is until he finds out he is not Lord Glenthorn, the Anglo-Irish earl. He is in fact the peasant Christy O'Donoghoe, which is a fly in the ointment for his efforts to provide for the woman he loves. At the same time, he gets caught up in the violent Irish Rebellion of 1798. Can he shake off the ennui, become a self-made man and win the hand of his love? Those who enjoy Jane Austen's novels, including 'Persuasion', 'Sense and Sensibility', and 'Pride and Prejudice', will love 'Ennui'. Like Austen, Maria Edgeworth has a gift for gently exposing the hypocrisy and accidental comedy of Britain's 19th century upper-middle class. First published in 1809, 'Ennui' is a didactic novel, which means it aims to teach the reader a moral lesson - like 'Aesop's Fables'. The Irish writer Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849) was highly regarded in her day as a pioneer of early 19th century fiction and children's literature. A friend of the novelist Sir Walter Scott ('Ivanhoe', 'Rob Roy'), she was active and vocal about political and estate reform. Today, she is rather underappreciated - and overshadowed - by other 19th century satirical novelists like Jane Austen and Anthony Trollope. A prolific writer, Edgeworth's best-known works include 'Ennui', 'The Dun' and 'Belinda', which was controversial in its day for featuring inter-racial marriage.