Castle Rackrent and The Absentee. Illustrated by Chris Hammond and with an Introduction by Anne Thackeay Ritchie. London: Macmillan, 1895. Pp xlix, 381. Maroon cloth boards, title blocked in gilt to upper cover, floral motif blind embossed to covers; light staining to page margins, otherwise a good copy.

Maria Edgeworth took over the management of her father’s estate in Co. Longford and dedicated herself to writing novels that encouraged the kind treatment of Irish tenants by their landlords.

Two novels in one. ‘Castle Rackrent’ chronicles the dissolute and debauched lives of the landowning Rackrent family, whilst the second novel, ‘The Absentee’ set in rural Ireland and London society, attacks the evils of absentee ownership and the wrongs that spring from it.