Maria Edgeworth (January 1, 1767 – May 22, 1849) was a writer and education during the Romantic Period. Born in England to an upper-class family, she spent most of her life living in Irleand which certainly contributed to much of her fiction as she was a witness to the oppression and lack of rights to education that so many Irish citizens were subject to. An author of nonfiction and fiction, she interested herself in education and wrote extensively on the subject. Some of those works included Letters for Literary Ladies (1794), The Parent’s Assistant (1796), and Practical Education (1798).

Her writings were somewhat controversial and were often criticized by her contemporaries for various reasons. Some thought she was too radical to suggest equitable education of women and members of the lower classes while others claimed that she was not radical enough, advocating for the equality in education despite gender and class but not advocating equal place in society for either. She did not seem to advocate against such things, but she did write according to the social and political limitations of the era rather than embracing an ideal that had not yet been reached.

One of her works about education entitled, Practical Education, was among her more contested writings. Anne Chandler writes on this topic in an article entitled, “Maria Edgeworth on Citizenship: Rousseau, Darwin, and Feminist Pessimism in Practical Education”. In it, Chandler states, “Practical Education…works in two directions. In volume one, which mainly addresses methods of early childhood education, Edgeworth's interleaving of Rousseau with Darwin is crucial to what her treatise offers parents: the opportunity to raise children of either sex who are immune to class rivalry, unafraid to speak their minds in public, and capable of ethical deliberation. In volume two, however, which more actively compares the curricular needs of young children and teenagers, that civic ideal is harder to proclaim without qualification” (Chandler 96).

It appears that Maria Edgeworth advocated these reforms while still understanding and speaking to the constraints of the time. She collects the thoughts of the Enlightenment thinkers before her (namely, Darwin and Rousseau) and combines them, elaborates upon them, and tweaks them into something new. Her steps toward progress were, perhaps, smaller than women such as Mary Woolstencroft would have approved of. However, her works played a major role in forming the understanding of educational systems and early childhood development and education that we have today.

In spite of the criticism her ideas received, Maria Edgeworth was an incredibly prolific writer and contributed greatly to both education and literature. Some sources claim that Jane Austen was a fan of her writing and this can certainly be seen in Jane Austen’s novels. Edgeworth’s ideas connect very cleanly with themes of class, gender, and education that we read of in Mansfield Park as well as other Austen Novels.

Work Cited

Chandler, Anne. “Maria Edgeworth on Citizenship: Rousseau, Darwin, and Feminist Pessimism in Practical Education.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, vol. 35, no. 1, 2016, pp. 93–122. EBSCOhost, search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.uvu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mzh&AN=2016872976&site=eds-live.