Castle Rackrent
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Good
First published in 1800, Castle Rackrent stands as a landmark in literary history — widely regarded as the first regional novel in the English language and a devastating portrait of Anglo-Irish landlordism in its death throes. Narrated by the irrepressibly loyal servant Thady Quirk, the novel chronicles the spectacular rise and ruin of the Rackrent family across four generations, each heir more dissolute than the last, their grand estate crumbling under the weight of gambling debts, drunkenness, and spectacular mismanagement. Edgeworth's masterstroke lies in her use of the unreliable narrator: Thady's cheerful, unwavering devotion to his masters blinds him — and initially the reader — to the full horror of their moral bankruptcy, creating a wickedly ironic comedy of social decay. Maria Edgeworth writes with a precision and wit that anticipates the great realist novelists of the nineteenth century, and her influence on Sir Walter Scott and Ivan Turgenev has been well documented. This Oxford University Press edition, edited with an authoritative introduction by George Watson, presents the text with the scholarly apparatus it deserves, illuminating the novel's rich historical context and its enduring literary significance. Castle Rackrent is not merely a period curiosity — it is a razor-sharp examination of power, loyalty, and self-deception that resonates with unsettling clarity to this day.
Author: Maria Edgeworth
Format: Hardback
Published: 1964, Oxford University Press
Genre: Classic fiction
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Good
First published in 1800, Castle Rackrent stands as a landmark in literary history — widely regarded as the first regional novel in the English language and a devastating portrait of Anglo-Irish landlordism in its death throes. Narrated by the irrepressibly loyal servant Thady Quirk, the novel chronicles the spectacular rise and ruin of the Rackrent family across four generations, each heir more dissolute than the last, their grand estate crumbling under the weight of gambling debts, drunkenness, and spectacular mismanagement. Edgeworth's masterstroke lies in her use of the unreliable narrator: Thady's cheerful, unwavering devotion to his masters blinds him — and initially the reader — to the full horror of their moral bankruptcy, creating a wickedly ironic comedy of social decay. Maria Edgeworth writes with a precision and wit that anticipates the great realist novelists of the nineteenth century, and her influence on Sir Walter Scott and Ivan Turgenev has been well documented. This Oxford University Press edition, edited with an authoritative introduction by George Watson, presents the text with the scholarly apparatus it deserves, illuminating the novel's rich historical context and its enduring literary significance. Castle Rackrent is not merely a period curiosity — it is a razor-sharp examination of power, loyalty, and self-deception that resonates with unsettling clarity to this day.