Maria Edgeworth (1768–1849) was the second child of Anglo-Irish Richard Lovell Edgeworth, a political liberal and enlightened educator. Her pioneering regional novels set in Ireland and sparkling comedies of high-life English manners, from Belinda (1801) to Helen (1834), commanded unprecedented advances and were major best-sellers. She was read and admired by Jane Austen, Walter Scott, Byron, Stendhal, Turgenev and Ruskin. She never married and lived, from age 14 until her death aged 81, at her father’s estate in Edgeworthstown in the Irish Midlands.
John Mullan is a Professor of English at UCL. He hosts the Guardian Book Club, and contributes regularly to Newsnight Review, LRB and New Statesman. John Mullan will be available for interview or to write articles. |
John Mullan |
She was the bestselling author of Regency England. Admired by Jane Austen whose fame she eclipsed and dubbed ‘Our Great Maria’ by Sir Walter Scott. John Ruskin declared her work, ‘The most re-readable in existence’. Isn’t it time we started reading Maria Edgeworth?
“Jane Austen fans are bound to relish this fine mix of social comedy and thwarted love.” John Mullan 
