The Absentee

Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849) was the eldest daughter of an Anglo-Irish landholding family. Returning to Ireland from years in England at the age of fourteen, Maria involved herself with the management of her father's estate. She came to know the people and the country very well and wrote of it in her successful novels, including , , and others. Heidi Thomson is a Senior Lecturer at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand.