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Castle Rackrent

Maria Edgeworth

Book Overview: 

The novel is set in early 1780's Ireland and is narrated by Honest Thady, loyal steward to generations of the Rackrent family. These are: The generous Sir Patrick, the tight-fisted Sir Murtagh (married into the Skinflint family), the cruel Sir Kit who locked his wealthy wife up in her room for seven years and the amiable spendthrift Sir Condy, who has no head for business and a fondness for whiskey punch. Together, they have run the estate into debt and disaster. Jason Quirk, Thady's astute son sorts everything out in the end to his satisfaction but much to Thady's dismay

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Book Excerpt: 
. . .Here, above all, we had the opportunity of seeing in what universal respect and comfort a gentleman's family may live in that country, provided only they live there habitually and do their duty. . . . Here we found neither mud hovels nor naked peasantry, but snug cottages and smiling faces all about. . . . Here too we pleased ourselves with recognising some of the sweetest features in Goldsmith's picture of "Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain."' Oliver Goldsmith received his education at this very school of Edgeworthstown, and Pallas More, the little hamlet where the author of THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD first saw the light, is still, as it was then, the property of the Edgeworths.

So Scott came to visit his little friend, and the giant was cheered and made welcome by her charming hospitality. It was a last gleam of sunshine in that noble life. We instinctively feel how happy they all were in each other's good company. We can almost overhear some of their . . . Read More

Community Reviews

Edgeworth’s satire inspired the oeuvre of Walter Scott—this unappealing fact aside, it is an excellent lampoon in the Swiftian tradition and something of a progenitor to the popular technique of frametales, found books ‘edited’ by the authors, and unreliable narrators. The rambling narrator Thady Qu

There's a curious reference to Castle Rackrent in The Great Gatsby. Nick invites his cousin Daisy over for tea, instructing her not to bring her husband. The plan is to privately re-introduce her to Gatsby. When Daisy greets Nick, she says "'Are you in love with me?...or why did I have to come alone

This is a short novel but it seems long like a visit to the dentist might only last 15 minutes but subjectively it lasts for three days.

I read this so you don’t have to. It’s a comic monologue by an ancient servant to the Irish Rackrent family. He has tunnel vision, all he is interested in is his m

An unexpectedly delightful book, one of the first I've read that really captures what I've come to think of as quintessentially British humor, the sort later typified by Wilde and Wodehouse. The pointlessly loyal teller of this tale is one of the best examples of the 'Unreliable Narrator' that I've

This enjoyable one volume novel--brief as a medium-sized novella--was published in 1800, but is set in the years from the middle of the 18th century to the establishment of the Irish constitution of 1782. It gives us a satirical view of four generations of the Rackrent family, each an example of the

Cited as an early satirical work and one of the first English historical novels, Castle Rackrent is the story of the Rackrents, formerly the O'Shaughlins, a family of land-holding Anglo-Irish aristocrats who sink into dissolution and ruin over the course of four generations. The narrator, "Old Thady

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