The Absentee (World's Classics S.) - Softcover

Edgeworth, Maria

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0192816829 ISBN 13: 9780192816825

Publisher: Oxford Paperbacks, 1988

Synopsis

Set in London, this novel describes the attitudes of an Irish landowning family towards their tenants, emphasizing the pernicious consequences for Ireland and for the wider world of absentee landownership. The book includes appendices showing how Edgeworth revised the text from the 1st edition, and Edgeworth's "Notes for essay on the genius and style of Burke". "The absentee" (1812) is the second of Maria Edgeworth's novels, the first being "Castle Rackrent" (1800) and is aimed at the general reader as well as for students of early 19th century English and Irish literature, of women's literature and on the historical and the regional novel.

About this title

About the Author:

Although born in England in 1768, Maria Edgeworth was raised in Ireland from a young age after the death of her mother. After nearly losing her sight at age fourteen, Edgeworth was tutored at home by her father, helping to run their estate and taking charge of her younger siblings. Over the course of her life she collaborated and published books with her father, and produced many more of her own adult and children s works, including such classics as Castle Rackrent, Patronage, Belinda, Ormond and The Absentee. Edgeworth spent her entire life on the family estate, but kept up friendships and correspondences with her contemporaries Sir Walter Scott and Lord Byron, and her writing had a profound influence upon Jane Austen and William Makepeace Thackeray. Edgeworth was outspoken on the issues of poverty, women s rights, and racial inequalities. During the beginnings of famine in Ireland, Edgeworth worked in relief and support of the sick and destitute. She died in 1849 at the age of 81.

From the Back Cover:

Maria Edgeworth's sparkling satire about the Anglo-Irish family of an absentee landlord is also a landmark novel of morality and social realism.

The Absentee centres around Lord and Lady Clonbrony, a couple more concerned with London society than their duties and responsibilities to those who live and work on their Irish estates. Recognizing this negligence, their son Lord Colambre goes incognito to Ireland to observe the situation and trace the origins of his beloved cousin Grace. To put matters straight he finds a solution that will bring prosperity and contentment to every level of society, including his own family.

In her Introduction, Heidi Thomson explores the political and social themes of the book and place it in its historical context. With Castle Rackrent and The Absentee Maria Edgeworth helped create the 'regional' novel, rich in atmosphere and local character, and influenced writers as disparate as Scott, Thackeray and Turgenev.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford Paperbacks
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 0192816829
• ISBN 13: 9780192816825
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 368