"Miss Edgeworth was of diminutive stature, and apparently not beautiful. No portrait was ever taken. It seems from Scott's descriptions of her that her appearance faithfully represented the combined vivacity and good sense and amiability of her character. No one had stronger family affections, and the lives of very few authors have been as useful and honourable. The didacticism of the stories for children has not prevented their permanent popularity. Her more ambitious efforts are injured by the same tendency. She has not the delicacy of touch of Miss Austen, more than the imaginative power of Scott. But the brightness of her style, her keen observation of character, and her shrewd sense and vigour make her novels still readable, in spite of obvious artistic defects. Though her puppets are apt to be wooden, they act their parts with spirit enough to make us forgive the perpetual moral lectures."
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Novelists from IrelandNovelists from EnglandShort story writers from EnglandEssayists from IrelandShort story writers from Ireland
Original Language: English
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Sources
Leslie Stephen, 'Edgeworth, Maria', Dictionary of National Biography, Vol. XVI. Drant—Edridge, ed. Leslie Stephen (1888), p. 382
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Maria_Edgeworth
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Maria Edgeworth
Maria Edgeworth (1 January 1768 – 22 May 1849) was a popular and influential Anglo-Irish novelist, short-story writer and educationalist.
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