Book – Maria Edgeworth’s Letters From Ireland by V. Pakenham

January 1 2018 was the 250th anniversary of the birth of Maria Edgeworth. Valerie Pakenham’s sparkling new selection of over four hundred letters, many hitherto unpublished, helped to celebrate her memory. Maria was a prolific and fascinating letter writer. She insisted that her letters were for private consumption only, but after her death, her stepmother and half-sisters produced a private memoir for friends.

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Description

The Book ‘Maria Edgeworth’s Letters From Ireland’ written by Valerie Pakenham was published January 1, 2018 which was the 250th anniversary of the birth of Maria Edgeworth.

Maria Edgeworth’s posthumous fame has dwindled and only her first novel, Castle Rackrent (1800), a brilliant burlesque account of the Irish squirearchy, is still widely read. She was, however, a prolific and fascinating letter writer. She insisted that her letters were for private consumption only, but after her death, her stepmother and half-sisters produced a private memoir for friends using carefully selected extracts. Their literary quality was spotted by Augustus Hare, whose shortened version, The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, appeared in 1894.

In the 1970s Maria’s great great niece, Christina Colvin edited Maria Edgeworth’s Letters from England and Maria Edgeworth in France & Switzerland. No one, however, has revisited fully Maria’s original letters from the place she loved and knew best: Ireland. From 1825, Maria’s letters reflect sixty years of Irish history, from the heady days of Grattan’s Parliament, through the perils of the 1798 Rebellion to the rise of O’Connell and the struggle for Catholic Emancipation. In old age, she worked actively to alleviate the Great Famine and wrote her last story to raise money aged 82. A treasure trove of stories, humour, local and high-level gossip, her letters show the extraordinary range of her interests: history, politics, literature and science.

Maria almost single-handedly took over the management of her family estate and restored it to solvency. Her later letters brim with delight at these practical undertakings and her affection for the local people she worked with. Two of her half-sisters and her stepmother were gifted artists, and Valerie Pakenham has been able to use many of their unpublished drawings and sketches to illustrate the Book ‘Maria Edgeworth’s Letters From Ireland’.

Additional information

Publisher

Lilliput Press

Language

English

Paperback

448

Dimensions

235 X 155mm

ISBN

978-1-84351-734-4

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