Maria Edgeworth was a prolific Anglo-Irish novelist of adults' and children's literature. She was one of the first realist writers in children's literature and a significant figure in the evolution of the novel in Europe. She held critical views on estate management, politics, and education, and corresponded with some of the leading literary and economic writers, including Sir Walter Scott and David Ricardo. During the first decade of the 19th century she was one of the most widely read novelists in Britain and Ireland. Her name today is most commonly associated with Castle Rackrent, her first novel, in which she adopted an Irish Catholic voice to narrate the dissipation and decline of a family from her own landed Anglo-Irish class.
Castle Rackrent is a short novel by Maria Edgeworth published in 1800. Unlike many of her other novels, which were heavily "edited" by her father, Richard Lovell Edgeworth, before their publication, the published version is close to her original intention.
Evelina, or the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World is a novel written by English author Frances Burney and first published in 1778. Although published anonymously, its authorship was revealed by the poet George Huddesford in what Burney called a "vile poem".
Sir George Nugent, 1st Baronet, GCB was a British Army officer. After serving as a junior officer in the American Revolutionary War, he fought with the Coldstream Guards under the Duke of York during the Flanders Campaign. He then commanded the Buckinghamshire Volunteers in the actions of St. Andria and Thuyl on the river Waal and participated in the disastrous retreat from the Rhine. He went on to be commander of the northern district of Ireland, in which post he played an important part in placating the people of Belfast during the Irish Rebellion, and then became Adjutant-General in Ireland. He went on to be Governor of Jamaica, commander of the Western District in England, commander of the Kent District in England and finally Commander-in-Chief, India.
The Hon. Emily Lawless was an Irish novelist, historian, entomologist, gardener, and poet from County Kildare. Her innovative approach to narrative and the psychological richness of her fiction have been identified as examples of early modernism.
Sylvester, or the Wicked Uncle is a Regency romance novel by Georgette Heyer. First published by Heinemann, London and Putnam, New York in 1957, it is the story of intelligent and desperate Phoebe who ends up marrying the man she has run away from home to avoid, and whom she has caricatured as the villain in her novel. The book features gentle mockery of the Gothic novel genre and also features Heyer's characteristic strong heroine, with a desire for independence, who marries on her own terms. The story is set in 1817-1818.
The Palliser novels are six novels written in series by Anthony Trollope. They were more commonly known as the Parliamentary novels prior to their 1974 television dramatisation by the BBC broadcast as The Pallisers. Marketed as "polite literature" during their initial publication, the novels encompass several literary genres including: family saga, bildungsroman, picaresque, as well as satire and parody of Victorian life, and criticism of the British government's predilection for attracting corrupt and corruptible people to power.
Leonora is a novel written by Maria Edgeworth and published in 1806.
The Convenient Marriage is a Georgian romance novel by Georgette Heyer published in 1934. The novel is set in 1776 and concerns the relationship between Horatia Winwood and Lord Marcus Drelincourt. It is the first of several Heyer romances where the hero and heroine are married early in the novel, and the plot follows their path to mutual love and understanding. Later examples include Friday's Child and April Lady.
False Colours is a Regency romance by Georgette Heyer, published in 1963 in the UK by The Bodley Head and in 1964 by E. P. Dutton in the US. The novel is set in 1817, and concerns a young man who must temporarily impersonate his missing twin brother and the complications brought in the wake of this deceit. In British English, the term 'under false colours' refers to the use of a flag to which one is not entitled as a tactic for purposes of deception, and so by extension to any dishonest manoeuver.
Belinda is an 1801 novel by the Anglo-Irish writer Maria Edgeworth. It was first published in three volumes by Joseph Johnson of London. The novel was Edgeworth's second published, and was considered controversial in its day for its depiction of an interracial marriage. It was reprinted by Pandora Press in 1986.
Algernon William Fulke Greville, 2nd Baron Greville, styled Hon. Algernon Greville-Nugent from 1866 to 1883, was a British politician.
George Thomas John Nugent, 1st Marquess of Westmeath, styled Lord Delvin between 1792 and 1814 and known as The Earl of Westmeath between 1814 and 1821, was an Anglo-Irish peer.
Harrington is an 1817 novel by Anglo-Irish novelist Maria Edgeworth. The novel was written in response to a letter from a Jewish-American reader who complained about Edgeworth's stereotypically anti-semitic portrayals of Jews in Castle Rackrent (1800), Belinda (1801), The Absentee (1812), and her Moral Tales (1801) for children. The novel is an autobiography of a "recovering anti-Semite", whose youthful prejudices are undone by contact with various Jewish characters, particularly a young woman. It draws parallels between the religious discrimination of the Jews and the Catholics in Ireland. Set between the Jewish Naturalisation Act of 1753 and the Gordon Riots of 1780, the timeframe highlights these connections.
A Simple Story is a novel by English author and actress, Elizabeth Inchbald. Published in early 1791 as an early example of a "novel of passion", it was very successful and became widely read in England and abroad. It went into a second edition in March 1791. It is still in print today.
Honora Edgeworth was an eighteenth-century English writer, mainly known for her associations with literary figures of the day particularly Anna Seward and the Lunar Society, and for her work on children's education. Sneyd was born in Bath in 1751, and following the death of her mother in 1756 was raised by Canon Thomas Seward and his wife Elizabeth in Lichfield, Staffordshire until she returned to her father's house in 1771. There, she formed a close friendship with their daughter, Anna Seward. Having had a romantic engagement to John André and having declined the hand of Thomas Day, she married Richard Edgeworth as his second wife in 1773, living on the family estate in Ireland till 1776. There she helped raise his children from his first marriage, including Maria Edgeworth, and two children of her own. Returning to England she fell ill with tuberculosis, which was incurable, dying at Weston in Staffordshire in 1780. She is the subject of a number of Anna Seward's poems, and with her husband developed concepts of childhood education, resulting in a series of books, such as Practical Education, based on her observations of the Edgeworth children. She is known for her stand on women's rights through her vigorous rejection of the proposal by Day, in which she outlined her views on equality in marriage.
Louisa Catherine Beaufort (1781–1863) was an Irish antiquarian, author and artist.
Julie Amelie Charlotte Castelnau, known from 1871 as Lady Wallace is best known today for her "bequest to the Nation" of about 5,500 artworks that resulted in the Wallace Collection, which opened in her marital home 13 years after her death. Her bequest was almost certainly in fulfilment of the wishes of her late husband Sir Richard Wallace, 1st Baronet, who together with his father and grandfather, the 3rd and 4th Marquesses of Hertford, had amassed the majority of the collection.
Ennui is a novel by Maria Edgeworth published in 1809. It is a fictitious memoir of the Earl of Glenthorn, an English man who experiences excessive boredom (ennui) and attempts to find novelty and meaning in life. Edgeworth began writing the novel before 1805, and though she said she finished it that year, she likely continued revising it until around 1808.
