Maria Edgeworth Two Classic Irish Short Stories

"The Basket-Woman"   (1796, 5 pages)
"The Grateful Negro"   (1804, 18 pages)

Irish Short Story Month Year 3

March 1 to March 31

Event Resources-links to lots of Irish short stories-from all periods

1796 in Ireland-two convict ships leave Cork for Australia.   The French try to invade Ireland but bad weather prevents them from landing.  The population of the country is estimated to be 4.5 million with about 250,000 in Dublin.  Virtually anything of value is owned by Anglo-Irish.

Marie Edgeworth (1768 to 1849) was a very prolific Irish writer in various forms, among them the short story and the novel.   She was Anglo-Irish (I wonder who was the first important Irish writer of whom that cannot be said).  I am not sure how much she is read now but she is considered an important figure in the development of stories about women and children, especially young women and girls.   Her novel Castle Rackrent is considered the first historical novel, the first Anglo-Irish novel (I wonder how Gulliver's Travels is classified by those who state this) and the first of a long tradition of Big House novels.  Set in 1782 in Ireland it is a satire and expose of the cruelty of Landlords.  I really enjoyed reading it and I think it is probably required reading for those into the Irish novel.   During ISSW2 I posted on her most famous short story "The Purple Jar" which is  about a girl's first period.   It is interesting for nothing else as to see how vague Edgeworth felt she had to be in writing this story.   It is considered a classic story as it is probably the first reference to this in literature.   I concede it is partially in the category of "historically important" read. I also read her short story, included by William Trevor in his great anthology, The Oxford Book of Irish Short Stories, "Limerick Gloves" which is a very funny satire of English prejudice against the Irish.  It is a delightful story.

Edgeworth began her short story career with children's stories, all with a heavily didactic tone.   "The Basket-Woman" (and also "The Purple Jar") were in her first collection of children's stories, The Parent's Assistant (1796).   There are three central characters in "The Basket-Woman", a boy and his sister orphaned at an early age and an old woman who adopted them, they call her grandmother.   Times are hard and  they live very simply but from the hard work and the sacrifices of the grandmother they do not go hungry.   She has two sources of income.  One is from weaving on her spinning wheel.    Their home is right in front of a very steep hill.   Carriages often stop to rest their horses at the top of the hill and the grandmother goes up the steep hill, getting harder and harder for her, and puts rocks behind the wheels of the carriages so they will not role down hill.  People normally give her either a penny or a half-penny.   One day her children tell her from now on they will be the ones to do this.   The grandmother goes with them the first couple of days but soon they are on their own and they always come home with some money for grandmother.   One day a man tosses them several coins, mostly half-pennies but mixed in is a gold coin, about the size of a half-penny but worth a 1000 times more.  At first the children do not really know what this coin they have never before seen can be but once they do they conclude it may have been given to them by mistake and they set out to find the man who tossed it to them to return it even though they longed to buy their grandmother a much needed blanket.

The story is short and I do not want to spoil the ending (OK it is not real hard to see it coming) but honesty is wonderfully rewarded, the wicked are thwarted and lives are changed as a result of the code of total honesty that the children had been brought up in by their grandmother.

"The Grateful Negro" is interesting for the view it gives us of how a highly educated woman of strong moral principals like Maria Edgeworth viewed the institution of slavery.  The story is set in Jamaica in the 1760s.  Slavery is legal there and is seen as needed to run the sugar plantations.    Ms. Edgeworth took her facts from contemporary accounts of life on slave plantation in Jamaica written by English absolutionists  so she did her research.   There are two slave masters in the story, one is very good and benevolent and treats his slaves well.   The kind master does not free them as he thinks, as did many well meaning people at the time, that it would lead to chaos in which the slaves, with no way to get home (many in fact were born in the islands) would starve and some saw the needed production of sugar and rum as justifying slavery.   The harsh master is not really deliberately cruel he just turned the slaves and the plantation to the control of an overseer and he told him make money and he ignored the plantations.   There is some interesting plot action involving a slave revolt and the gratitude of a "Good Negro" to his master.  This story is interesting as a historical document.   It is interesting to see how a citizen of Ireland, a colonized state with much of its population in near slavery (in fact many were taken as slaves to work the sugar plantations) viewed plantation slavery.  

You can read the stories online here along with lots more of her stories.  


Mel u

"Maria, cute hat"
Carmilla

Castle Rackrent by Maria Edgeworth

Castle Rackrent by Maria Edgeworth (1800, 302 pages)

Castle Rackrent  by Maria Edgeworth (1768 to 1849-there is some background information on her in my posts on "The Purple Jar" and "Limerick Gloves") is far more than just a famous work of the sort we sometimes read just to increase our understanding of literary history.  It was, among other things, a terribly funny book. 


Maria Edgeworth (1768 to 1849) was born in England to Irish parents but returned to Ireland at age 14.  She helped her father manage his estate, took charge of her younger siblings and was taught at home by her father in law, Irish history, science  and literature.   She observed very closely the day to day life of the people from peasant to gentry and also began to correspondent on equal terms with many learned men. 




  W. B. Yeats said it was "one of the most inspired chronicles ever written in English".    It started the "Big House" novel craze, that still is very popular today, it might be the first historical novel and it one of the first novels to make use of an unreliable narrator.  In a very interesting feature there is an added glossary at the end written as if it were done by an Englishman commenting on the Irish.  


The novel is a satire and a deep slam on the Anglo Irish landlord class.   It is narrated by one Thady Quirk who  has served four generations of the family.  Declan Kibard in Inventing Ireland says Castle Rackrent is about a time when the relationships between  landlords and tenants were trusting and easy, one long passed in 1800, if it ever existed.   The owners of the estate are your standard  figures:   we have the heir given to the wild life, one constantly involved in lawsuits, a cruel gambler who is seldom there and we have a kind but feckless heir to round things out.  The son of Thady Quirk is very involved in running the estate.


The fun, and yes it is not a grim read to get it read book, is in the narration of Thady, his sucking up to his masters while getting around them while playing Paddy, the difference between reality and the perceptions of Thady, and the wonderful prose of Edgeworth.   

There is also a lot to be learned about the history and culture of Ireland from this book.   For example before I read this I had no idea that the lady of the big house was entitled to the weed money from the estate.   


Castle Rackrent (even the heavy handed joke in the title works once you start to understand how subtle this book turns out to be) is a subversive work that should be read by anyone who wants to see the start of Irish Post colonial literature while reading a great pre-Victorian novel.


You can download this book from Manybooks along with other works by Maria Edgeworth.  

Join us in the Irish Quarter Please

Mel u 

"The Limerick Gloves" by Maria Edgeworth

 "The Limerick Gloves" by Maria Edgeworth (1809, 25 pages)

Day Three

Resources and Ideas for Irish Short Story Week

Please consider joining us for Irish Short Story Week Year Two, March 12 to March 31.   All you need do is post on one short story by an Irish author and send me a comment or an e-mail and I will include it in the master post at the end of the challenge.  

An Early 19th Century Story About

Anti-Irish Feelings Among the English 

Maria Edgeworth (1768 to 1849) was born in England to Irish parents but returned to Ireland at age 14.  She helped her father manage his estate, took charge of her younger siblings and was taught at home by her father in law, Irish history, science  and literature.   She observed very closely the day to day life of the people from peasant to gentry and also began to correspondent on equal terms with many learned men.   She may have been born in England but her sympathies were with the Irish, she considered her self Irish and William Trevor included "The Limerick Gloves" in his The Oxford Book of Irish Short Stories.   Most of her large literary output is devoted to the interaction of traditional rural Irish with the more modern elements of society and the English.   She was an advocate of women's writers and a supporter of Catholic Emancipation.    She worked very hard during the Potato Famines of 1845 to 1849 to help the poor.  

"Maria, you should let me give
you some fashion tips"-Carmella

I think of all Edgeworth's work it is for her story "The Purple Jar",which is most read now.  It was on a daring and shocking topic in the early 1800s, a girl's first period, as it was somehow considered shameful for this to happen.  Most girl's received little preparation for this.  (I posted on the story last year during Irish Short Story Year One.)   The father's disgusted reaction is really cruel.


"The Limerick Gloves" is a very funny story (there is no humor in "The Purple Jar") about the prejudices the Irish living in England faced, some of it just jibes and some quite vicious.   

The story is set in England.  Mr and Mrs Hill (that is what the couple call each other) are talking about their daughter's new Limerick Gloves and the fact that an Irish Glove maker who seems to be courting their daughter gave her the gloves.   Mr Hill is terribly anti-Irish and the last thing he wants is an Irish son-in-law who obviously has come to his town just so he can blow up the local protestant cathedral.  Mr Hill orders his daughter to remove the gloves at once.   Phoebe outrages her father by saying "But Papa, why should we dislike him because he is an Irishman?  Cannot an Irishman be a good man".


The father begins to investigate the Irishman.   Every report he gets says he is a very good man, helps the poor and is dedicated to his parents plus he has some good honest money.  If he were an Englishman, Mr Hill would be thrilled by the match.   

Mr Hill finds a way to get Mr O'Neill arrested for a dubious debt and is even madder when he at once is released.  I will tell no more of the story other than to say at end of the story both men are the best friends.


"The Purple Jar" is, to me, kind of a historical curio type of story.   "The Limerick Gloves" is really enjoyable to read and quite funny.  It lets us see just how the English looked on the Irish.  


A lot of the work of Maria Edgeworth can be found on Manybooks.

"Please join us, and Marie, I  like  your
fashion sense"-Rory

Mel u