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 Edgeworthstown 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.