Maria Edgeworth

Maria Edgeworth
Maria Edgeworth by John Downman, 1807
Maria Edgeworth by John Downman, 1807
Born(1768-01-01)1 January 1768
Black Bourton, Oxfordshire, England
Died22 May 1849(1849-05-22) (aged 81)
Edgeworthstown, County Longford, Ireland
OccupationWriter (novelist)
NationalityBritish, Irish
Period18th century
GenreRegionalism, Romantic novel, children's literature
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Maria Edgeworth (1 January 1768 – 22 May 1849) 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.[2] 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.