About the Book
Castle Rackrent [1800]
Castle Rackrent, a short novel by Maria Edgeworth published in 1800, is often regarded as the first historical novel, the first regional novel in English, the first Anglo-Irish novel, the first Big House novel and the first saga novel.[1]
It is also widely regarded as the first novel to use the device of a narrator who is both unreliable and an observer of, rather than a player in, the actions he chronicles. Kirkpatrick suggests that it "both borrows from and originates a variety of literary genres and subgenres without nearly fitting into any one of them".[1]
Shortly before its publication, an introduction, glossary and footnotes, written in the voice of an English narrator, were added to the original text to blunt the negative impact the Edgeworths feared the book might have on English enthusiasm for the Act of Union 1800.
About the Author
Maria Edgeworth, 1767-1849
Novelist, only child of Richard Edgeworth, of Edgeworthstown, Co. Longford, was born near Reading. Her father, who was himself a writer on education and mechanics, bestowed much attention on her education. She showed early promise of distinction, and assisted her father in his literary labours, especially in Practical Education and Essay on Irish Bulls [1802]. She soon discovered that her strength lay in fiction, and from 1800, when her first novel, Castle Rackrent, appeared, until 1834, when her last, Helen, was published, she continued to produce a series of novels and tales characterised by ingenuity of invention, humour, and acute delineation of character. Notwithstanding a tendency to be didactic, and the presence of a “purpose” in most of her writings, their genuine talent and interest secured for them a wide popularity. It was the success of Miss Edgeworth in delineating Irish character that suggested to Sir W. Scott the idea of rendering a similar service to Scotland. Miss Edgeworth, who had great practical ability, was able to render much aid during the Irish famine. In addition to the works above mentioned, she wrote Moral Tales and Belinda [1801], Leonora [1806], Tales of Fashionable Life (1809 and 1812), and a Memoir of her father
