MURAD THE UNLUCKY AND OTHER TALES


Contents:

Introduction
Murad the Unlucky
The Limerick Gloves
Madame de Fleury




INTRODUCTION


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. In
March, 1773, his first wife died after giving birth to a daughter named
Anna. In July, 1773, he married again, Honora Sneyd, and went to live in
Ireland, taking with him his daughter Maria, who was then about six years
old. Two years afterwards she was sent from Ireland to a school at
Derby. In April, 1780, her father's second wife died, and advised him
upon her death-bed to marry her sister Elizabeth. He married his
deceased wife's sister on the next following Christmas Day. Maria