ABSTRACT
The final extract in this book tells, appropriately, of a culmination in a relationship which for many years had been carried on through letters, and which is one of the most celebrated of all Sir Walter Scott’s literary friendships. In 1823, the two most respected novelists of their day, Scott and Maria Edgeworth, met in Edinburgh after nearly ten years of correspondence, compliments, and last-minute postponements. Much of Edgeworth's work, especially in the earlier years, was educational: Letters to Literary Ladies , a defence of education for women, appeared in 1795, followed by the Parent’s Assistant, Practical Education (written with her father), and moral tales for children. Scott greatly admired Edgeworth’s work, especially her Irish tales, and the acknowledgement of her influence expressed at the end of his first novel, Waverley, led to the start of what was to be a lifelong and regular correspondence between them.
