Maria Edgeworth's Letters from Ireland

2018年1月1日將是Maria Edgeworth誕辰250週年。瓦萊麗·帕克納姆（Valerie Pakenham）精選了超過四百封信件，她出生於英國，十四歲時被帶到愛爾蘭居住，餘生的大部分時間都在公司Edgeworthstown，Co.的家中度過。

。瑪麗亞·埃奇沃思（Maria Edgeworth）的死後名望逐漸減少，只有她的第一本小說《城堡·拉克倫特城堡》（Castle Rackrent，1800）是愛爾蘭貴族制的傑出代表，至今仍被廣泛閱讀。但是，她是一位多產而迷人的書信作家。她堅持說自己的信僅供私人使用，但死後，她的繼母和同父異母的姐姐用精心挑選的摘錄為朋友們製作了私人回憶錄。

從1825年起，瑪麗亞（Maria）的來信便反映了愛爾蘭的六十年歷史，從格拉頓（Garttan）議會的蓬勃發展時期到1798年叛亂的危險，再到奧康奈爾（O'Connell）的崛起以及天主教徒的解放鬥爭。在老年時，她積極工作以減輕大饑荒，並寫了她的最後一個故事以籌集82歲的錢。故事，幽默，當地和高級八卦的寶庫，她的信顯示了她極大的興趣範圍：歷史、政治、文學和科學。

Their literary quality was spotted by Augustus Hare, whose shortened version, The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, appeared in 1894. In the 1970s Maria's great great niece, Christina Colvin edited Maria Edgeworth's Letters from England and Maria Edgeworth in France & Switzerland. No one, however, has revisited fully Maria's original letters from the place she loved and knew best: Ireland.

From 1825, Maria's letters reflect sixty years of Irish history, from the heady days of Grattan's Parliament, through the perils of the 1798 Rebellion to the rise of O'Connell and the struggle for Catholic Emancipation. In old age, she worked actively to alleviate the Great Famine and wrote her last story to raise money aged 82. A treasure trove of stories, humour, local and high-level gossip, her letters show the extraordinary range of her interests: history, politics, literature and science.

Maria almost single-handedly took over the management of her family estate and restored it to solvency. Her later letters brim with delight at these practical undertakings and her affection for the local people she worked with. Two of her half-sisters and her stepmother were gifted artists, and Valerie Pakenham has been able to use many of their unpublished drawings and sketches to illustrate this book.

Maria Edgeworth (Auther) 

Publisher:The Lilliput Press; Illustrated