keep his accounts, and to arrange matters with the tenants.
In this way she acquired that familiarity with Irish peasant
life which is one of the marked characteristics of her stories.
Maria took upon herself the care of her brother Henry's
education. In the management of this she was guided by her
father's advice; and the care and attention both gave to the
subject led to their first joint production, A Treatise on
Practical Education, in two volumes. The treatise is an ex-
position, in the form of discursive essays, of the educational
ideas of Rousseau's Émile. Similar theories influence the
character of the children's books of the time produced by
Maria and her friends. Among these may be mentioned
Sandford and Merton, written by Day to illustrate the Émile
idea. Before this Miss Edgeworth had begun to write. In
1795 appeared the Letters to Literary Ladies, a defence of
female education; and in 1796 the first volume of the Parent's
Assistant, from which Lazy Lawrence, The False Key, The Bar-
ring Out, and Simple Susan are taken.

In 1800 she published her first novel for adults, Castle Rack-
rent. It was sent out anonymously, but won almost immediate
recognition; so the second edition appeared with the name of
the authoress. Then followed Belinda in 1801, and the Essay
on Irish Bulls by herself and her father in 1802. Moral Tales
appeared in 1801; and Popular Tales, from which Murad the
Unlucky, The Lottery, and To-morrow are taken, in 1804. In the
same year she wrote The Modern Griselda. In 1810 Early
Lessons appeared in ten parts, and was continued later by
her father.

Her reputation as an authoress was now established. The
variety, the philosophy, the sympathetic insight, the humour
and pathos of her studies of Irish life, were not more admired
than were the correctness and simplicity of the style in which
the stories were written. The death of her father in 1817 was
a severe blow to her. "Few," she wrote, "I believe, have ever
enjoyed such happiness or such advantages as I have had in
the instruction, society, and unbounded confidence and affec-
tion of such a father and such a friend."

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