View source for Maria Edgeworth

===Early life===
Maria Edgeworth was born in [[Black Bourton]], Oxfordshire. She was the second child of [[Richard Lovell Edgeworth]] (who eventually fathered twenty-two surviving children by four wives) and Anna Maria Edgeworth (''née'' Elers); Maria was thus an aunt of [[Francis Ysidro Edgeworth]].<ref name="Keown">{{Citation|last=Keown|first=Edwina|title=Edgeworth, Maria|date=2011-02-01|url=https://www.dib.ie/biography/edgeworth-maria-a2882|work=Dictionary of Irish Biography|editor-last=Quinn|editor-first=James|access-date=2023-05-25|publisher=Royal Irish Academy|language=en|doi=10.3318/dib.002882.v2|url-access=subscription|doi-access=free}}</ref> She spent her early years with her mother's family in England, living at The Limes (now known as Edgeworth House) in [[Northchurch]], by [[Berkhamsted]] in [[Hertfordshire]].<ref>{{NHLE|num=1342141|desc=Edgeworth House|access-date=11 June 2021|mode=cs2}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Wreyford|first1=Paul|title=Literary Buckinghamshire|date=2008|publisher=History Press|isbn=978-0-7509-5342-9|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Xvw6AwAAQBAJ&dq=Maria+Edgeworth+%22the+limes%22&pg=PT184|access-date=11 June 2021|language=en}}</ref> Her mother died when Maria was five, and when her father married his second wife [[Honora Sneyd]] in 1773, she went with him to his estate, [[Edgeworthstown]], in [[County Longford]], Ireland.<ref>{{cite book|last=De Breffny|first=Brian|author-link=|date=1983|title=Ireland: A Cultural Encyclopedia|url=|location=London|publisher=Thames and Hudson|page=79|isbn=}}</ref>
[[File:Edgeworthstown House.jpg|thumb|Edgeworthstown House, Ireland]]

Maria was sent to Mrs. Lattafière's school in Derby after Honora fell ill in 1775. After Honora died in 1780 Maria's father married Honora's sister Elizabeth (then socially disapproved and legally forbidden from 1833 until the [[Deceased Wife's Sister's Marriage Act 1907]]). Maria transferred to Mrs. Devis's school in London. Her father's attention became fully focused on her in 1781 when she nearly lost her sight to an eye infection.{{sfn|McCormack|2015}} Returning home at the age of 14, she took charge of her many younger siblings<ref name=dona2>{{cite book|author=Jane Donawerth|title=Rhetorical Theory By Women Before 1900|year=2002|publisher=Rowman & LittleField|location=Lanham, MD|isbn=0-7425-1717-9|pages=130–131}}</ref> and was home-tutored in law, Irish economics and politics, science, and literature by her father. She also started her lifelong correspondences with learned men, mainly members of the [[Lunar Society of Birmingham|Lunar Society]].{{citation needed|date=January 2022}}

She became her father's assistant in managing the Edgeworthstown estate, which had become run-down during the family's 1777–1782 absence; she would live and write there for the rest of her life. With their bond strengthened, Maria and her father began a lifelong academic collaboration "of which she was the more able and nimble mind".{{sfn|McCormack|2015}} Present at Edgeworthstown was an extended family, servants and tenants. She observed and recorded the details of daily Irish life, later drawing on this experience for her novels about the Irish. She also mixed with the Anglo-Irish gentry, particularly [[Catherine Wellesley, Duchess of Wellington|Kitty Pakenham]] (later the wife of [[Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington]]), [[Elizabeth Rawdon, Countess of Moira|Lady Moira]], and her aunt Margaret Ruxton of [[Blackcastle House|Blackcastle]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.navanhistory.ie/index.php?page=blackcastle-house|title=Blackcastle House|website=Navan & District Historical Society|access-date=13 May 2019}}</ref> Margaret supplied her with the novels of [[Ann Radcliffe]] and [[William Godwin]] and encouraged her in her writing.<ref name=boy>{{cite book|author=Henry Boylan|year=1998|title=A Dictionary of Irish Biography, 3rd Edition|page= 120|location=Dublin|publisher= Gill and MacMillan|isbn = 0-7171-2945-4}}</ref>