The Edgeworths moved to Ireland in 1782, and Maria helped her father, the inventor and educationalist Richard Lovell Edgeworth, in the management of his estate north of Dublin. From a family of twenty-one children, her writing was encouraged by her father and in 1796 she published her first collection of stories, The Parent's Assistant. In 1800, Castle Rackrent was published and was very well-received. Maria developed many acquaintances in literary circles, including Walter Scott and Jane Austen, both of whom admired her work. Her other works included Belinda (1801), Tales of Fashionable Life (1809-12 6 Vols.), Patronage (1814) and Ormond (1817). After her father's death in 1817, Maria's writing was reduced, but she did complete her father's Memoirs in 1820. |
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