Mr Edgeworth encouraged his daughter's literary instincts. It has been the fashion to regard his influence over Maria's work as altogether deplorable, but against the disadvantages arising from his interference must be weighed the stimulus she undoubtedly derived from his powerful mind. Her first publication was a plea for female education, _Letters to Literary Ladies_ (1795), and in 1796 appeared the collection of stories known as _The Parent's Assistant_ (2nd ed., 6 vols., 1800), an unpromising title which was not chosen by the author. The stories had been submitted as they were written to the juvenile critics of the Edgeworth nursery. They were therefore children's stories for children, even though the morals were Mr Edgeworth's. In 1798 Mr Edgeworth's fourth marriage threatened the family harmony, but Maria soon became a close friend of her stepmother. _Practical Education_ (2 vols., 1798) was written in conjunction with her father, who also collaborated with her in the _Essay on Irish Bulls_ (1802). Miss Edgeworth's first novel, _Castle Rackrent, an Hibernian Tale taken from Facts, and from the Manners of the Irish Squires before the year 1782_, was written without her father's supervision, and appeared anonymously in 1800. It is the story of an Irish estate and its owners, the Rackrents, as told by Thady, the steward. Its success was immediate, and a second edition soon appeared with the author's name. Perhaps because of the absence of Richard Lovell Edgeworth's co-operation, the book is the most natural and vigorous of her novels. The course of the story is not altered to suit any moral, and the personages appear to be drawn immediately from the natives of Edgeworthstown, though Miss Edgeworth asserts that only Thady himself was an actual portrait. In her realistic pictures of Irish peasant life she opened up a new vein in fiction, and even if the unquestionable excellences of _Castle Rackrent_ were less, it would still be a noteworthy book. In the "General Preface" to the 1829 edition of his novels Sir Walter Scott, writing of the publication of _Waverley_, says: "I felt that something might be attempted for my own country, of the same kind with that which Miss Edgeworth so fortunately achieved for Ireland," and in the "Postscript, which should have been a preface," in the original edition of _Waverley_, he describes his aim as being "in some distant degree to emulate the admirable Irish portraits of Miss Edgeworth, so different from the 'Teagues' and 'dear joys' who so long, with the most perfect family resemblance to each other, occupied the drama and the novel." _Belinda_ (1801) is a society novel, and one of her best books. Mr Saintsbury thinks that Miss Austen's heroines owe something of their naturalness to Belinda, who was one of the earliest to break with the tradition of fainting and blushing. _Moral Tales for Young People_ (5 vols.) and _Early Lessons_, which included "Harry and Lucy," "Rosamond" and "Frank," appeared in 1801.