文档介绍：MURAD THE UNLUCKY AND OTHER TALES
MURAD THE
UNLUCKY AND OTHER
TALES
by Maria Edgeworth
1
MURAD THE UNLUCKY AND OTHER TALES
INTRODUCTION
Maria Edgeworth came of a lively family which had settled in Ireland
in the latter part of the sixteenth century. Her father at the age of five-
and-twenty inherited the family estates at Edgeworths-town in 1769. He
had snatched an early marriage, which did not prove happy. He had a
little son, whom he was educating upon the principles set forth in
Rousseau's "Emile," and a daughter Maria, who was born on the 1st of
January, 1767. He was then living at Hare Hatch, near Maidenhead. In
March, 1773, his first wife died after giving birth to a daughter named
Anna. In July, 1773, he married again, Honora Sneyd, and went to live
in Ireland, taking with him his daughter Maria, who was then about six
years old. Two years afterwards she was sent from Ireland to a school at
Derby. In April, 1780, her father's second wife died, and advised him
upon her death-bed to marry her sister Elizabeth. He married his
deceased wife's sister on the next following Christmas Day. Maria
Edgeworth was in that year removed to a school in London, and her
holidays were often spent with her father's friend Thomas Day, the
author of "Sandford and Merton," an eccentric enthusiast who lived then at
Anningsley, in Surrey.
Maria Edgeworth--always a little body--was conspicuous among her
schoolfellows for quick wit, and was apt alike for study and invention.
She was story-teller general to munity. In 1782, at the age of
fifteen, she left school and went home with her father and his third wife,
who then settled finally at Edgeworthstown.
At Edgeworthstown Richard Lovell Edgeworth now became active in
the direct training of his children, in the improvement of his estate, and in
schemes for the improvement of the country. His eldest daughter, Maria,
showing skill with the pen, he made her more and more panion
and fellow-worker to