SOURCE: "The Didacticism of Edgeworth's Castle Rackrent" in Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. XVII, No. 4, Autumn, 1977, 593-605.

In the following essay, Brookes commends the harmony of intent, subject matter, and form of the essentially didactic Castle Rackrent.

Castle Rackrent is often preferred among Maria Edgeworth's works because it seems a creation free of her usual didacticism, a slice of Irish life presented without comment. "In Castle Rackrent," says O. Elizabeth McWhorter Harden, "Miss Edgeworth drew directly from nature; only in Castle Rackrent was she a poet. In her recent major biography, Maria Edgeworth: A Literary Biography, Marilyn Butler argues that the story "evolved from a fairly elaborate verbal imitation of a real man" and that the details of the story are arranged, in contrast with her usual practice, around "the character sketch of Thady rather than a didactic theme." Yet there is another view of Castle Rackrent...