In recent years, Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849) has been the subject of increasing interest. This collection of essays builds on scholarship that has helped canonize Edgeworth's writing. It also raises new questions about her place in English and Irish history, literary history, and women's history. In many ways, Edgeworth's entire adult life was an attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable, an attempt to justify and preserve her own privileged position even as she acknowledged the tenuousness of that position and as she sought to claim other privileges denied her. Edgeworth's writing challenges readers to understand her historical contexts as much as it obliged her to confront the politics of her literary authority.