EDGEWORTH, Maria (1768-1849). Novelist and educationist.
Autograph Letter Signed to Mary and Agnes Berry ('My dear Miss Berrys'), 4 pages 8vo (mounting strip on fourth page), Edgeworth's Town, 3 April 1816.
Introducing her brother Lovell 'who has had so large a share of the evils of life that I cannot help wishing he should now enjoy as much as possible of its blessings'.

'... He has been twelve years a prisoner in France - detained by Bonaparte from the time of the breaking out of the war till the allies entered Paris - so that he is a stranger almost in his own country & till the present moment ill health has prevented him from fully enjoying the contrast of the society in London and that to which he was condemned in France. ...'

She sends apologies on behalf of her brother (Charles) Sneyd for his having failed to receive an invitation from the Miss Berrys when in London, gives an account of her own activities, and alludes to Horace Walpole:

'... We are well at this time happily engaged in reading a most entertaining book in the first page of which is written from A & M. Berry. It was a present from the Miss Berrys to the late Mr. Malone & with all his valuable library has come into the possession of his brother Lord Sunderlin who is our neighbor in this country. ... It is interleaved & furnished with prints of Mr. Malones collecting of all the persons mentioned in "the Remininiscences". What a delightful companion Lord Orford must have been & how much we are obliged to those who have preserved in its full animation & elegance the living spirit of his conversation. ...'

Provenance: from a collection formed by A.M. Broadley in 1903.
[No: 24725]