Editing Castle Rackrent (section)

== Importance ==
''Castle Rackrent'' is sometimes regarded as the first [[historical novel]], the first regional novel in English, the first [[Anglo-Irish]] novel, the first Big House novel, and the first saga novel.<ref name = "KJK">Kirkpatrick, Kathryn J. (1995) "Introduction to ''Castle Rackrent''", Oxford, [[Oxford University Press]]</ref> [[W. B. Yeats|William Butler Yeats]] pronounced ''Castle Rackrent'' "one of the most inspired chronicles written in English".<ref>[[William Butler Yeats|W. B. Yeats]], ''Representative Irish Tales'' (1891; Atlantic Highlands, NJ, 1979), 27.</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Kirkpatrick|first=Kathryn J.|title=Introduction to Castle Rackrent|year=1995|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-953755-6}}</ref> [[Walter Scott|Sir Walter Scott]], who met and carried on a correspondence with Edgeworth,<ref>{{Cite web|last=Pakenham|first=Valerie|title=Maria Edgeworth's letters: 'Sir Walter Scott punctual to his word arrived on Friday'|url=https://www.thejournal.ie/readme/maria-edgeworths-letters-sir-walter-scott-punctual-to-his-word-arrived-on-friday-3710251-Nov2017/|access-date=2021-08-16|website=TheJournal.ie|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Butler|first1=Harriet J.|last2=Butler|first2=Harold Edgeworth|date=1928|title=Sir Walter Scott and Maria Edgeworth. Some Unpublished Letters|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3714408|journal=The Modern Language Review|volume=23|issue=3 |pages=273–298|doi=10.2307/3714408 |jstor=3714408 }}</ref> credited her novel for inspiring him to write his [[Waverley Novels|Waverley]] series of novels:<blockquote>Without being so presumptuous as to hope to emulate the rich humour, pathetic tenderness, and admirable tact, which pervade the works of my accomplished friend, I felt that something might be attempted for my own country, of the same kind with that which Miss Edgeworth so fortunately achieved for Ireland—something which might introduce her natives to those of the sister kingdom in a more favourable light than they have been placed hitherto.<ref>{{Cite book|editor-last1=Kaufman|editor-first1=Heidi|title=An Uncomfortable Authority: Maria Edgeworth and Her Contexts|editor-last2=Fauske|editor-first2=Christoper J|publisher=Newark : University of Delaware Press|year=2004|isbn=9780874138788|location=Newark|pages=256}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=Barry|first=C. M.|date=2018-01-01|title='My accomplished friend': the life and philosophy of Maria Edgeworth|url=https://www.irishphilosophy.com/2018/01/01/maria-edgeworth/|access-date=2021-08-16|website=www.irishphilosophy.com|language=en-GB}}</ref></blockquote>The novel is alluded to in ''[[The Great Gatsby]]'' by [[F. Scott Fitzgerald]], ''[[A Mother in History]]'' by [[Jean Stafford]] and ''[[Milkman (novel)|Milkman]]'' by [[Anna Burns]].