When Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849) published her first work,
Letters for Literary Ladies, to which is added An Essay on the Noble Science of Self-Justification(1795), she choose as her subject a topic that had greatly exercised the pens of writers throughout the eighteenth century: women's education. She also produced her work at a moment when this subject was both of peculiar import and highly charged.
Letters for Literary Ladies has its origins in a series of letters exchanged between Edgeworth's father, Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1744-1817), and Thomas Day (1748-1789), his great friend. In their correspondence, the two men discussed the subject of women's education in general, and the possibility of a literary career for Edgeworth in particular. Day was horrified when he discovered that
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Citation: Murphy, Sharon Jude. "Letters to Literary Ladies". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 31 May 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=3984, accessed 25 November 2024.]
