COMIC DRAMAS, in three acts

London: R. Hunter, 1817. Pp. viii+382+[2](advertisements); post 12mo; contemporary calf, spine lettered and ruled in gilt, edges of boards lightly worn, joints tender, the spine with slight signs of oval shelf label near head; early inked signature at head of title page and different (also early) signature on lower pastedown, a few leaves slightly browned, scattered light foxing and soiling; R. Hunter, London, 1817. First edition. Sadleir 764; Wolff 1985. *Three plays: Love and Law; The Two Guardians; and The Rose, Thistle and Shamrock. The Preface by the author's father, Richard Lovell Edgeworth, is dated May 1, 1817, and must have been one of the last things he wrote before his death on June 13, 1817. Richard Edgeworth was an inventor, author and educationalist who had a dominant influence on his daughter's works (although her first novel, Castle Rackrent (1800), written without his influence, was one of her most popular). Known for her children's stories and for her novels of Irish life, Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849 ) was one of the most widely read authors of the early nineteenth century. Castle Rackrent is regarded as the first regional novel in English, and Sir Walter Scott, in the last chapter of Waverley and later in the preface to his collected novels, acknowledged Edgeworth's influence on his work. Jane Austen was also an admirer, particularly of Edgeworth's second novel, Belinda, (1801).