An Introduction to Maria Edgeworth

Abstract Literary history has not been kind to Richard Lovell Edgeworth, the eminent father of a celebrated daughter. In the words of another celebrated daughter of an eminent father, Virginia Woolf, Richard Edgeworth was “Byron’s bore, Day’s friend, Maria’s father, the man who almost invented the telegraph, and did, in fact, invent machines for cutting turnips, climbing walls, contracting on narrow bridges, and lifting their wheels over obstacles-a man meritorious, industrious, advanced, but still, as we investigate his memoirs, mainly a bore.”1 In response to such characterization, Marilyn Butler sought to reclaim Richard’s reputation in Maria Edgeworth, a Literary Biography. In particular, she redressed the persistent belief that Richard was an overbearing or dominant father who thwarted his daughter’s artistic and creative development.2 Despite her evidence, however, many critics-and feminist critics, in particular-remain skeptical of a reading that renders Richard’s paternal influence more disinterested or benevolent.