Castle Rackrent and The Absentee
Castle Rackrent and The Absentee

Author: Maria Edgeworth

Publisher:

Published: 1976

Total Pages: 346

ISBN-13: 9780141881522

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Thady Quirk, steward to the decaying estate of the Rackrent family, narrates a story of four generations of a dying dynasty in Castle Rackrent. This volume also includes Ennui, the entertaining confessions of the Earl of Glenthorn, a bored aristocrat. Both novels offer a darkly comic and satirical expose of the Irish class system.

Castle Rackrent and Ennui
Castle Rackrent and Ennui

Author: Maria Edgeworth

Publisher:

Published: 2008-12-30

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 9781441421326

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Castle Rackrent, a novel by Maria Edgeworth published in 1800, is often regarded as the first true historical novel and the first true regional novel in English. It is also widely regarded as the first family saga, and the first novel to use the device of a narrator who is both unreliable and an observer of, rather than a player in, the actions he chronicles. This volume also includes Ennui, the entertaining confessions' of the Earl of Glenthorn, a bored, spoiled aristocrat. Desperate to be free from the demon of ennui, Glenthorn's quest for happiness takes him through violence and revolution, and leads to intriguing twists of fate. Both novels offer a darkly comic and satirical expose of the Irish class system, and a portrait of a nation in turmoil.

Castle Rackrent
Castle Rackrent

Author: Maria Edgeworth

Publisher: Standard Ebooks

Published: 2023-08-28T18:08:16Z

Total Pages: 110

ISBN-13:

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In eighteenth-century Ireland, a privileged class of Anglo-Irish landowners known as the “Protestant Ascendancy” lived on great estates, with the mostly-Catholic Irish as their tenants and servants. Maria Edgeworth was part of this Anglo-Irish aristocracy. Castle Rackrent, her best known novel, satirizes the failures and follies of her Anglo-Irish peers, their mismanagement of their estates, and their abuse of their Irish tenants. The narrator of Castle Rackrent is Thady Quirk, whose family has served on the Rackrent estate for generations. Thady relates the life stories of four successive lords of Castle Rackrent and how their individual character and personality affect the lives and families that depend on them. Castle Rackrent was one of the first historical novels written in English, and Walter Scott later cited it as inspiration for his own Scottish historical novels. Edgeworth included two sets of explanatory notes on aspects of Irish life and culture for her English readers, footnotes in the main text and a “glossary” added in the second edition. These have been merged into a single set of endnotes in this Standard Ebooks edition. This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.

Ennui
Ennui

Author: Maria Edgeworth

Publisher: Lindhardt og Ringhof

Published: 2022-04-18

Total Pages: 243

ISBN-13: 8728185366

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Lord Glenthorn is bored and lacking oomph. But before you feel sorry for him, it is worth knowing that he has a pile of money, a grand title, estates in England and Ireland and no stress. That is until he finds out he is not Lord Glenthorn, the Anglo-Irish earl. He is in fact the peasant Christy O'Donoghoe, which is a fly in the ointment for his efforts to provide for the woman he loves. At the same time, he gets caught up in the violent Irish Rebellion of 1798. Can he shake off the ennui, become a self-made man and win the hand of his love? Those who enjoy Jane Austen's novels, including 'Persuasion', 'Sense and Sensibility', and 'Pride and Prejudice', will love 'Ennui'. Like Austen, Maria Edgeworth has a gift for gently exposing the hypocrisy and accidental comedy of Britain's 19th century upper-middle class. First published in 1809, 'Ennui' is a didactic novel, which means it aims to teach the reader a moral lesson - like 'Aesop's Fables'. The Irish writer Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849) was highly regarded in her day as a pioneer of early 19th century fiction and children's literature. A friend of the novelist Sir Walter Scott ('Ivanhoe', 'Rob Roy'), she was active and vocal about political and estate reform. Today, she is rather underappreciated - and overshadowed - by other 19th century satirical novelists like Jane Austen and Anthony Trollope. A prolific writer, Edgeworth's best-known works include 'Ennui', 'The Dun' and 'Belinda', which was controversial in its day for featuring inter-racial marriage.