Maria Edgeworth: 79 books

Excerpt: “Are you to be at Lady Clonbrony’s gala next week?” said Lady Langdale to Mrs. Dareville, whilst they were waiting for their carriages in the crush-room of the opera-house. “Oh, yes! every body’s to be there, I hear,” replied Mrs. Dareville. “Your ladyship, of course?” “Why,...

Excerpt: "When I was a little boy of about six years old, I was standing with a maid-servant in the balcony of one of the upper rooms of my father’s house in London—it was the evening of the first day that I had ever been in London, and my senses had been excited, and almost exhausted, by...

Our great lexicographer, in his celebrated eulogium on Dr. Watts, thus speaks in commendation of those productions which he so successfully penned for the pleasure and instruction of the juvenile portion of the community.

Excerpt: "PREFACE. Some author says, that a good book needs no apology; and, as a preface is usually an apology, a book enters into the world with a better grace without one. I, however, appeal to those readers who are not gluttons, but epicures, in literature, whether they do not wish to see...

Excerpt: "Mrs. Stanhope, a well-bred woman, accomplished in that branch of knowledge which is called the art of rising in the world, had, with but a small fortune, contrived to live in the highest company. She prided herself upon having established half a dozen nieces most happily, that is to say,...

Excerpt: “Indeed, in all sciences the grand difficulty has been to ascertain facts—a difficulty which, in the science of education, peculiar circumstances conspire to increase. Here the objects of every experiment are so interesting that we cannot hold our minds indifferent to the result. Nor...

Excerpt: “There is Helen in the lime-walk,” said Mrs. Collingwood to her husband, as she looked out of the window. The slight figure of a young person in deep mourning appeared between the trees,—“How slowly she walks! She looks very unhappy!” “Yes,” said Mr. Collingwood, with a sigh,...

The plot of the novel centres on the newly married Leonora and her decision to bring back to England a woman who had been exiled to France. The woman, Olivia, is known as a "coquette," and her controversial behaviour with regard to her marriage had driven her to France, where she cultivated an aristocratic, "French" sensibility that exists apart from conventional morality. Wikipedia)

Depuis quelques années, le petit bourg de Somerville, en Irlande, avait pris la physionomie riante d’un village anglais. Le propriétaire, M. Somerville voulant inspirer à ses tenanciers l’amour de l’ordre et du foyer domestique, cherchait par tous les moyens en son pouvoir,...

« Serez-vous de gala chez lady Clonbrony, la semaine prochaine ? » dit lady Langdale à mistriss Dareville, pendant qu’elles attendaient leurs voitures dans le vestibule de l’Opéra. « Assurément. Tout Londres y sera, me dit-on, » répondit mistriss...

Extrait : Mistriss Stanhope avait de l’esprit : c’était une de ces femmes qui, sacrifiant leur amour-propre à leur intérêt, possèdent l’art de s’introduire dans le grand monde. Sa fortune était médiocre ; elle savait l’employer habilement à se maintenir dans...

Castle Rackrent is widely regarded as the first historical novel—as well as the first novel to feature a narrator who is an unreliable observer of the story. Set in England, the narrative is told by the steward of the Rackrent heirs, Thady Quirk. As the four heirs mismanage their money in various ways, Thady’s son Jason devises a plan to make the entire fortune his.