Edgeworth, Maria

(born Jan. 1, 1767, Blackbourton, Oxfordshire, Eng.—died May 22, 1849, Edgeworthstown, Ire.) British-Irish writer. From age 15 she assisted her father in managing his estate, gaining a knowledge of rural economy and the Irish peasantry. Her early children's stories, published as The Parent's Assistant (1796), feature the first convincing child characters since Shakespeare. Castle Rackrent (1800), her first novel, revealed her gift for social observation and authentic dialogue. Other notable works are Belinda (1801); Tales of Fashionable Life (1809–12), a six-volume work including the novel The Absentee, which focused attention on abuses by absentee English landowners; Patronage (1814); and Ormond (1817).

Source: Encyclopedia Britannica