Maria Edgeworth, Letters to Literary Ladies

Sharon Jude Murphy (St. Patrick's College, Drumcondra)

Ed. by Ian Campbell Ross, Trinity College Dublin
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.06: English Writing and Culture of the Romantic Period, 1789-1837.
Vol. editors: Daniel Cook (University of Dundee), Daniel Robinson (Widener University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1795

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Didactic
Non-Fiction
- Letter(s)

Resources

When Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849) published her first work, Letters for Literary Ladies, to which is added An Essay on the Noble Science of Self-Justification (1795), she choose as her subject a topic that had greatly exercised the pens of writers throughout the eighteenth century: women's education. She also produced her work at a moment when this subject was both of peculiar import and highly charged.

Letters for Literary Ladies has its origins in a series of letters exchanged between Edgeworth's father, Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1744-1817), and Thomas Day (1748-1789), his great friend. In their correspondence, the two men discussed the subject of women's education in general, and the possibility of a …

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

1226 words

Citation: Murphy, Sharon Jude. "Letters to Literary Ladies". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 31 May 2007 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=3984, accessed 22 November 2024.]

Save this article