Castle Rackrent, a short novel by Maria Edgeworth published in 1800, is often 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.[1]
It is also widely regarded as the first novel to use the device of a narrator who is both unreliable and an
observer of, rather than a player in, the actions he chronicles. Kirkpatrick suggests that it "both borrows
from and originates a variety of literary genres and subgenres without neatly fitting into any one of
them".[1] William Butler Yeats pronounced Castle Rackrent "one of the most inspired chronicles written
in English".[2][3]
Shortly before its publication, an introduction, glossary and footnotes, written in the voice of an English
narrator, were added to the original text to blunt the negative impact the Edgeworths feared the book
might have on English enthusiasm for the Act of Union 1800.
The novel is one of the few of Miss Edgeworth's novels which her father did not 'edit'.
The novel is set prior to the Constitution of 1782 and tells the story of four generations of Rackrent heirs
through their steward, Thady Quirk. The heirs are: the dissipated spendthrift Sir Patrick O'Shaughlin, the
litigious Sir Murtagh Rackrent, the cruel husband and gambling absentee Sir Kit Stopgap, and the
generous but improvident Sir Condy Rackrent. Their sequential mismanagement of the estate is resolved
through the machinationsand to the benefitof the narrator's astute son, Jason Quirk.
It satirises Anglo-Irish landlords and their overall mismanagement of the estates they owned at a time
when the English and Irish parliaments were working towards formalising their union through the Acts
of Union. Through this and other works, Edgeworth is credited with serving the political, national
interests of Ireland and the United Kingdom the way Sir Walter Scott did for Scotland.
[4]
It is a dialogic
novel, comprising a preface and conclusion by an editor bookending a first person narrative proper. It
also has a glossary (which was a last-minute addition).
[1]