Patronage

Maria Edgeworth released this novel in 1814, the same year that Jane Austen published Mansfield Park. It was the most financially rewarding of Edgeworth's books. Its satirical eye falls on the social ladder of the period and on the range of jobs open to men depending on the rank they were born into. Edgeworth also examines the unequal ways in which women and men are regarded and treated, a concern that runs through all of her novels.

The story follows the Percy and Falconer families as they make their way through society at different levels of rank. Across their lives, the exchange of favours, whether romantic or financial, shapes what each character can attain and whom they must depend on.

Edgeworth was an Anglo-Irish novelist, and readers interested in the social novel of the early nineteenth century will find this a useful companion to her wider body of work.