Letters for Literary Ladies: To Which Is Added, An Essay On The Noble Science Of Self-Justification (Cambridge Library Collection - Education) - Softcover

Edgeworth, Maria

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1108018874 ISBN 13: 9781108018876

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2010

Synopsis

One of the foremost authors of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Maria Edgeworth (1768–1849) made the project of women's education the pillar of her career. Letters for Literary Ladies (1795), her first published work, takes up this question in earnest, offering a staunch defence of women's intellectual training and an impassioned warning against its neglect. The first two letters likely draw from an exchange between Richard Edgeworth, Maria's father, and his friend Thomas Day, presenting arguments for and against educating young women in the sciences and philosophy. The 'Letters of Julia and Caroline' illustrate this debate in epistolary form, dramatising both sides of the argument. The final 'Essay on the Noble Science of Self-Justification' serves as a wry critique of women's own self-deceptions. Complex and provocative, Letters for Literary Ladies demonstrates Edgeworth's early exploration of the subject that would define her career.

About this title

Book Description

Letters for Literary Ladies (1795) is the first publication of Maria Edgeworth, one of bestselling authors of the early nineteenth century and an eloquent advocate of female education. These fictional letters illustrate the benefits of an education founded on reason and the consequences of an education founded on pleasing others.

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.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1108018874
• ISBN 13: 9781108018876
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 212