With her satire on Anglo-Irish landlords in Castle Rackrent (1800), Maria
Edgeworth pioneered the regional novel and inspired Sir Walter Scott's
Waverley (1814). Politically risky, stylistically innovative, and
wonderfully entertaining, the novel changes the focus of conflict in
Ireland fromreligion to class, and boldly predicts the rise of the Irish
Catholic bourgeoisie. The second edition now includes new notes informed by
the latest scholarship.