This is a bizarre, little raucous novel from 1800. And it got me thinking about a few things. The novel itself is kind of collective history/memoir of three generations of rich landowners (of Castle Rackrent as you can imagine) told from the perspective of a long-time servant of the estate, one “Honest Thady” who is able to witness to, about, and confess on the various comings and goings of the family.
This faux memoir is written as a kind of family history in the style of a narrative history (as opposed to other styles like an annals or listing). It’s full of lengthy footnotes that discuss the meanings behind certain slang (sometimes overly simplistic or obvious ones even) Irish folk customs, and mispronunciations. The whole thing is overseen by an “author” who acts as a kind of editor of the text.
In a lot of ways this is a delightfully weird and almost (post)modern meta-text ala Tristram Shandy, Don Quixote, or other novels that know they’re novels (or at least know they’re texts). It’s also written in the kind of classic folk hero/trickster hero style. Ireland long played this role in British history, being the kind of built-in underclass, the site of a lot of British colonial oppression and economic exploitation, and given the book’s repeated insistence on having an English audience, it’s quite clear that the author’s mixed background and narrative’s pointed narration, that we’re meant to see the story as a kind of ground’s eye view on English aristocracy and colonial rule. The tone is very silly in general, but the critique’s are serious. (It reads almost like Edward Said’s contrpuntal rereading of Mansfield Park in this way).
It reminds me a lot of an early American novel called Modern Chivalry by Hugh Henry Brackenridge, which also lampoons the officiousness of the ruling class and was published around the same time.
(Photo: https://www.amazon.com/Castle-Rackrent-Oxford-Worlds-Classics/dp/0199537550/ref=sr_1_1?crid=IUXK84717I0T&keywords=castle+rackrent+maria+edgeworth&qid=1550675288&s=gateway&sprefix=castle+rack%2Caps%2C210&sr=8-1)