I have been reading, for the fourth time I believe, ‘The Simple Story,’ which I intended this time to read as a critic, that I might write to Mrs. Inchbald about it; but I was so carried away by it that I ... cried my eyes almost out before I came to the end.... I was obliged to go from it to correct ‘Belinda’ for Mrs. Barbauld, who is going to insert it in her collection of novels, with a preface; and I really was so provoked with the cold tameness of that stick or stone, ‘Belinda,’ that I could have torn the pages to pieces. And, really, I have not the heart or the patience to correct her. As the hackney coachman said, “Mend you! better make a new one.”

Maria Edgeworth: Letter, quoted in ‘A Study of Maria Edgeworth.’

In 1816 Maria received a letter from an American Jewess, a Miss Rachel Mordecai of Virginia, gently reproaching her with having made Jews ridiculous and odious in her novels and tales, and begging her to give the world a picture of a good Jew. This was the origin of the story of ‘Harrington.’... Mr. Edgeworth had expressed a wish to Maria that she should write a story as a companion to ‘Harrington’; and with all the anguish of heart which oppressed her natural spirits, at the sight of her father suffering such pain, and daily growing weaker, she made a strong effort to amuse him. By a wonderful exertion of love and genius, she produced the gay and spirited pages of ‘Ormond’; among which may be found some of her most vivacious scenes, her inimitable characters. Wit, humor, and pathos made the story a bright entertainment for the sufferer; who could not have realized in a line of its pages the aching heart which dictated it. The book was read chapter by chapter in her father’s room.

Grace A. Oliver: ‘A Study of Maria Edgeworth.’

I had often and often a suspicion that my manner was too Dutch, too minute.... I know I feel how much more is to be done, ought to be done, by suggestion than by delineation, by creative fancy than by fac simile copying; how much more by skilful selection and fresh, consistent combination, than can be effected by the most acute observation of individuals, or diligent accumulation of particulars.

There are little touches of inconsistency, which mark reality; for human nature is really inconsistent. And there are exceptions, as in grammar rules.... The value of odd characters depends upon their being actually known to be true. In history, extraordinary characters always interest us with all their inconsistencies, feeling we thus add to our actual knowledge of human nature. In fiction, we have not this conviction, and therefore not this sort or source of pleasure, even if ever so well done.

Few readers do, or can, put themselves in the places of great criminals, or fear to yield to such and such temptations. They know that they cannot fall to the depth of evil at once, and they have no sympathy, no fear: their spirits are not “put in the act of falling.” But show them the steep path, the little declivity at first, the step by step downwards; and they tremble. Show them the postern-gate, or little breaches in their citadel of virtue; and they fly to guard these. In short, show to them their own little faults which may lead on to the greatest, and they shudder; that is, if this be done with truth, and brought home to their consciousness. This is all which, by reflection on my own mind, and comparison with others and with records in books, ... I feel or fancy I have sometimes done or can do.

I have no “vast magazine of a commonplace book.” In my whole life, since I began to write—which is now, I am concerned to state, upwards of forty years—I have had only about half a dozen little note-books, strangely and irregularly kept, sometimes with only words of reference to some book or fact I could not bring accurately to mind. At first I was much urged by my father to note down remarkable traits of character, or incidents, which he thought might be introduced in stories. But I was averse to noting down, because I was conscious that it did better for me to keep the things in my head if they suited my purpose; and if they did not, they would only encumber me. I knew that when I wrote down, I put the thing out of my care, out of my head; and that, though it might be put by very safe, I should not know where to look for it; that the labor of looking over a note-book would never do when I was in the warmth and pleasure of inventing. In short, the process of combination, generalization, invention, was carried on always in my head best.... I never could use notes in writing dialogues. It would have been as impossible to me to get in the prepared good things at the right moment, in the warmth of writing conversation, as it would be to lay them in in real conversation; perhaps more so, for I could not write dialogues at all without being at the time fully impressed with the characters, imagining myself each speaker; and that too fully engrossed the imagination to leave time for consulting note-books: the whole fairy vision would melt away.

A curious fact, that where I least aimed at drawing characters, I succeeded best. As far as I have heard, the characters in ‘Castle Rackrent’ were in their day considered as better classes of Irish characters than any I ever drew; they cost me no trouble, and were made by no receipt, or thought of “philosophical classification”; there was literally not a correction, not an alteration, made in the first writing, no copy, and, as I recollect, no interlineation; it went to the press just as it was written. Other stories I have corrected with the greatest care, and re-modelled and re-written.... In every story (except ‘Rackrent’) which I ever wrote, I have always drawn out a sketch, a frame-work. All these are in existence; and I have lately compared many of the printed stories with them, some strangely altered, by the way.

Maria Edgeworth: Letter to Mrs. Stark, quoted in ‘A Study of Maria Edgeworth.’

You excel, I think, peculiarly in avoiding what is commonly called fine-writing,—a sort of writing which I detest; which calls the attention away from the thing to the manner, from the feeling to the language; which sacrifices every thing to the sound, to the mere rounding of a period; which mistakes stage effect for nature. All who are at all used to writing know and detect the trick of the trade immediately; and, speaking for myself, I know that the writing which has least the appearance of literary manufacture, almost always pleases me the best. It has more originality; in narration of fictitious events, it most surely succeeds in giving the idea of reality, and in making the biographer, for the time, pass for nothing. But there are few who can, in this manner, bear the mortification of staying behind the scenes. They peep out eager for appearance, and destroy the illusion by crying, I said it, I wrote it, I invented it all! Call me on the stage and crown me directly!

Maria Edgeworth: Letter to Mrs. Inchbald, quoted in ‘A Study of Maria Edgeworth.’

Miss Edgeworth has done more good both to the higher and lower world than any writer since the days of Addison. She shoots at “folly as it flies,” with the strong bolt of ridicule, and seldom misses her aim. Much as I admire the polished satire and nice discrimination of character in the ‘Tales of Fashionable Life,’ I prefer the homely pathos and plain morality of her ‘Popular Tales.’ The story of Rosanna is particularly delightful to me; and that of ‘To-morrow,’ made so deep an impression on my mind, that, if it were possible for any earthly power to reform a procrastinator, I really think that tale would have cured me of my evil habits.... I delight in her works for the same reason that you admire them—her exquisite distinction of character; whereas I am convinced that at least nine-tenths of her readers are caught solely by the humor of her dialogue and the liveliness of her illustrations.

Mary Russell Mitford: Letter to Sir William Elford, in the former’s ‘Life,’ by L’Estrange.

Miss Edgeworth is somewhat too avowedly didactic: that seems to be true of her, which the French critics, in the extravagance of their conceits, attributed to Homer and Virgil, viz:—that they first thought of a moral, and then framed a fable to illustrate it; she would, we think, instruct more successfully, and she would, we are sure, please more frequently, if she kept the design of teaching more out of sight, and did not so glaringly press every circumstance of her story, principal or subordinate, into the service of a principle to be inculcated, or information to be given.... Miss Edgeworth’s novels put us in mind of those clocks and watches which are condemned “a double or a treble debt to pay”; which, besides their legitimate object, to show the hour, tell you the day of the month or the week, give you a landscape for a dial-plate, with the second-hand forming the sails of a wind-mill, or have a barrel to play a tune, or an alarum to remind you of an engagement: all very good things in their way; but so it is that these watches never tell the time so well as those in which that is the exclusive object of the maker. Every additional movement is an obstacle to the original design.

Sir Walter Scott: ‘Miss Austen’s Novels,’ London Quarterly Review, January, 1821. ‘Scott’s Miscellanies,’ vol. i. Philadelphia: Carey & Hart, 1841.