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Overview
Faithful family employee Thady Quirk recounts the decline, over four generations, of the Rackrent family. Through gambling, hapless litigation, and general extravagance the Rackrent’s ruin is accomplished, but Thady is steadfast in defence of his masters.
With the short novel Castle Rackrent, Maria Edgeworth is said to have originated a number of literary genres and subgenres, including the historical novel, the Anglo-Irish novel and the “Big House” novel, a uniquely Irish subject in which the big house, where the typically English landlord lived, is surrounded by peasants.
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781443437745 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | HarperCollins Canada |
| Publication date: | 06/10/2014 |
| Sold by: | HARPERCOLLINS |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 176 |
| File size: | 257 KB |
About the Author
Although born in England in 1768, Maria Edgeworth was raised in Ireland from a young age after the death of her mother. After nearly losing her sight at age fourteen, Edgeworth was tutored at home by her father, helping to run their estate and taking charge of her younger siblings. Over the course of her life she collaborated and published books with her father, and produced many more of her own adult and children’s works, including such classics as Castle Rackrent, Patronage, Belinda, Ormond and The Absentee. Edgeworth spent her entire life on the family estate, but kept up friendships and correspondences with her contemporaries Sir Walter Scott and Lord Byron, and her writing had a profound influence upon Jane Austen and William Makepeace Thackeray. Edgeworth was outspoken on the issues of poverty, women’s rights, and racial inequalities. During the beginnings of famine in Ireland, Edgeworth worked in relief and support of the sick and destitute. She died in 1849 at the age of 81.
Table of Contents
Preface vii
A Note on the Text xi
List of Illustrations xii
The Text of Castle Rackrent 1
Preface 5
Castle Rackrent 9
Continuation of the Memoirs of the Rackrent Family 28
Glossary 63
Backgrounds and Contexts 79
Letters 83
To Fanny Robinson, August 1782 83
To Fanny Robinson, September 15, 1783 84
To Miss Sophy Ruxton, January 29, 1800 84
Richard Lovell Edgeworth to David Augustus Beaufort, April 26, 1800 84
To Miss. Mary Sneyd, September 27, 1802 85
To Michael Pakenham Edgeworth, February 19, 1834 85
To Mrs, Stark, September 6, 1834 86
Reception and Reviews 87
The Monthly Review: Ireland, May 1800 87
The British Critic: Novels, November 1800 88
Joseph Cooper Walker: Letter, November 23, 1800 89
Edinburgh Review: [The Irish Novel], October 1830-January 1831 89
W. B. Yeats: [Miss Edgeworth], 1891 91
Biography 93
Lord Byron: [Reading the Edgeworths], January 19, 1821 93
Gentleman's Magazine: Miss Edgeworth, July-December 1849 94
[Maria Edgeworth's Publication Earnings] 96
Edgeworth and Scott 99
Sir Walter Scott: From A Postscript Which Should Have Been a Preface, 1814 99
Maria Edgeworth to the Author of "Waverley," October 23, 1814 100
Sir Walter Scott: From General Preface to the 1829 Edition of Waverley 101
Juvenilia 103
From The Double Disguise 103
Criticism 111
General Studies 113
Walter Allen: [Castle Rackrent's Originality] 113
W. J. McCormack: [The Black Book of Edgeworthstown] 115
Seamus Deane: [The Irish Novel] 117
Brian Hollingworth: [Castle Rackrent's Composition] 125
Jacqueline Belanger: From Educating the Reading Public: British Critical Reception of Maria Edgeworth's Early Irish Writing 128
Marilyn Butler: [Edgeworth's Ireland] 137
Narrative Voices 145
Stanley J. Solomon: From Ironic Perspective in Maria Edgeworth's Castle Rackrent 145
Susan Glover: [Thady and the Editor] 149
Katherine O'Donnell: [Oral Culture] 161
Patriarchy and Paternalism 167
Elizabeth Kowaleski-Wallace: [Patriarchal Complicity] 167
Mary Jean Corbett: [Patriarchy and the Union] 175
Julie Nash: [Servants and Paternalism] 182
Hiberno-English 193
Joyce Elynn: [Edgeworth's Use of Hiberno-English] 193
Brian Hollingworth: From Maria Edgeworth's Irish Writing 199
Maria Edgeworth: A Chronology 205
Selected Bibliography 209