Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.Download Description
The author of the following Memoirs has upon these grounds fair claims to the public favour and attention; he was an illiterate old steward, whose partiality to the family, in which he was bred and born, must be obvious to the reader. He tells the history of the Rackrent family in his vernacular idiom, and in the full confidence that Sir Patrick, Sir Murtagh, Sir Kit, and Sir Condy Rackrent's affairs will be as interesting to all the world as they were to himself. Those who were acquainted with the manners of a certain class of the gentry of Ireland some years ago, will want no evidence of the truth of honest Thady's narrative: to those who are totally unacquainted with Ireland, the following Memoirs will perhaps be scarcely intelligible, or probably they may appear perfectly incredible. For the information of the ignorant English reader, a few notes have been subjoined by the editor, and he had it once in contemplation to translate the language of Thady into plain English; but Thady's idiom is incapable of translation, and, besides, the authenticity of his story would have been more exposed to doubt if it were not told in his own characteristic manner. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Unsettling Anglo-Irish Social Satire
Maria Edgeworth's "Castle Rackrent," published in 1800, the year of Irish union with Great Britain, and just two years after the 1798 Irish Rebellion, is supposedly a comic satire intended to show after years of unrest, that the Irish were civil enough to be assimilated into the British Empire.That is a deceptively simple description of a book in conflict with its author and itself.

Told to an "editor" by Thady Quirk, the 80+ year old steward of the Rackrent estate relates (very quickly) the story of the Rackrent family, Sir Patrick, Sir Murtagh, Sir Kit, and the absolutely dissolute Sir Condy.The O'Shaughlin family is forced by the Penal Laws to become Protestant and to change their name to Rackrent to regain their estate.The variously weak Rackrent men and their extremely strong and independent wives spend themselves into outrageous debt and tax their tenant farmers to the point of insanity over the course of the novel.

Apply Katie Trumpener's argument regarding the importance of the bog to Irish cultural nationalism in her book "Bardic Nationalism," and you begin to see that, all that seems to preserve the legacy of the O'Shaughlin family is their mucky bog, Allyballycarricko'shaughlin, and Thady Quirk, if he is to be trusted, himself seemingly stuck in a feudal past.

One of the major questions posed by Edgeworth's novel is "What is it to be Irish?"The Anglo-Irish Rackrent landlords claim an Irish Catholic heritage, but forfeit that personal history for the ephemeral run of the estate.The disenfranchised tenant farmers are forced to yield their produce to support the Rackrents's absurd behaviours.In the middle of this dynamic stand the novel's two most developed and challenging characters, Sir Condy Rackrent and Jason McQuirk, Thady's son.Raised in identical circumstances, these two seem to mark the novel's ultimate judgment on the future of Ireland.Is Condy the last of the feudal Irish aristocracy?Does Jason represent the model for the "British" assimilated Irishman?

Can outsiders even fathom Irishness?An almost comically unwieldy editorial apparatus, including a glossary and internal footnotes try to neutralize the foreignness and threat of the Irish for Edgeworth's intended British audience."Castle Rackrent" is indeed an ambivalent testament to the future of the Irish nation as it is swallowed up into the British Empire at the turn of the 19th century, and an intriguing read.

Boring, boring!
This book is simply boring.There are fun things to it, especially if you know your Irish history, but these out-of-date parodies are still not good enough to make it worth reading.Under the narrative of Thady Quirk, which is -- at least to me -- fairly hard to get through, we are taken through the history of a protestant landlord family. If you truly dissect the book, there are interesting sides of it, but just as a plain reading, I found it simply boring. It is short and doesn't go into any detailed description of the many events that are told to the reader/listener, it's value were supposedly the mocking of the protestant ruling class of Ireland. Since that value is lost to most contemporary readers, there isn't all that much left. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.Download Description
Title refers to Irish landlords in England, circa 1800. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Anglo-Irish Look at Ireland
Too often remembered solely as a British author, Maria Edgeworth's "The Absentee" provides a wonderful depiction of Ireland during the height of England's attempts to colonize Ireland through plantations.The historical problem with these estates was the often absence of the Lord.Edgeworth's novel reveals her Anglo-Irish stature.It depicts the Irish as either primitive and lacking ethics or as child-like and pure.Both of these reflect England's propaganda that was paired with the attempts at colonization.
Edgeworth's style reminds me very much of Jane Austen in that she focuses on the manners of the characters.In many ways, the characters resemble Austen's.The way Edgeworth depicts the individuals of Ireland, the way she represents the different class distinctions through the use of syntax and accents is deft.Edgeworth's novel is an invaluable tool for experiencing Ireland during its period of colonization.It combines the political, religious and economic aspects of Ireland."The Absentee" demands an understanding of Irish history.It is a superb novel and highly enriching for anyone seeking a greater knowledge of Ireland.

The Prominent Son
Duty, Loyalty, and Honor is the foremost part on his mind for our hero, Lord Colambre.To resolve his parents financial troubles and follies in London, he venture back to his homeland, Ireland, in disguise to investigate the agents who are governing his father's estate.Witnessing the corruption but also the beauty, he determine to bring those corrupter to justice and hope to stay in Ireland.And of course, there is a romance, but as you all know the hero always get his girl. ... Read more