WOMEN, EDUCATION AND LITERATURE
The Papers of Maria Edgeworth, 1768-1849

Part 2: The Edgeworth Papers from the National Library of Ireland

This second part covers all of the Edgeworth Papers from the National Library of Ireland, with the correspondence for the period up to 1817 - the period in which Maria Edgeworth enjoyed her greatest literary success  - including the publication of: Letters to Literary Ladies (1795); The Parent’s Assistant (1796); Practical Education (1798); Castle Rackrent (1800); Belinda (1801); Moral Tales (1801); Leonora (1806); Tales of Fashionable Life (1809-1812); Patronage (1814); Ormond and Harrington (both 1817).

The correspondence files - principally letters to and from Richard Lovell Edgeworth and Maria Edgeworth - are especially rich.  There are also many literary manuscripts including four albums of family verse; Maria’s Memoirs of Richard Lovell Edgeworth Esq; a commonplace book; two more notebooks; and Maria’s diary for 1803 and her account books for 1826-9 and 1837-8.

These sources provide much information concerning:

• Anglo-Irish Literature
• Female Education
• Literary Life and Society, c.1789-1850
• Women’s Writing and Women’s Reading
• Life in Ireland c.1750-1850
• The History of the Novel