Product Description

The only edition of this 1800 novelwidely regarded as the first historical novelto include supporting materials on both the importance of Maria Edgeworth as a writer and the influence of contemporary history on this novel.s publication in 1800 signaled many firsts: the first historical novel, the first regional novel in English, the first big house novel, the first Anglo-Irish novel, and the first novel with a narrator who is neither reliable nor part of the action. This Norton Critical Edition is based on the Baldwin & Cradock edition that appeared as part of an eighteen-volume collected edition titled (183233). It is accompanied by detailed explanatory annotations.

Ryan Twomey focuses the volumes Backgrounds and Contexts on Edgeworths importance as a writer, the influence of contemporary historical events on her writing (most importantly, the Act of Union of 1800, which united Ireland and Great Britain), and s impact on the development of the novel. These include a selection of Edgeworths letters; five major contemporary reviews; biographical pieces; Sir Walter Scott on Edgeworth and her response to him; and excerpts from Edgeworths juvenilia, .

Criticism is thematically organized to give readers a clear sense of s major themes: Irish writing and specifically the Irish novel, narrative voices, patriarchy and paternalism, and Edgeworths Hiberno-English writing. Contributors include Seamus Deane, Marilyn Butler, Katherine ODonnell, Julia Nash, Joyce Flynn, and Brian Hollingworth, among others.

A chronology of Edgeworths life and work and a selected bibliography are also included.
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