Sophie Gee

I think she's looking at the way in which they're constantly pushing at the edges of what can be written, what can be said, and actually the way a life can be lived.

They're living at the very edges of

social acceptability and respectability all of these women in different ways Austen's observing all of that and she is I think in her novels she's containing that maybe we don't need to call it radical or revolutionary I know that that

Some scholars wouldn't sign up on that.

But she's taking that deeply disruptive, disobedient energy from these women, and she's holding it in the sort of genteel, seemingly tea-table-ish settings of the novels.

And, you know, the genius of the novels is that that setting can't contain it.

And so they're always bursting at the seams.

They're always about to spill out.

And that takes us to our next heroic writer, who I'll be relatively brief about because we're

As always, our wit has flowed long, as Jane Austen would say.

But it's so important to acknowledge the incredible presence of Maria Edgeworth in this story.

So another lady with a terrific name, because Maria then was pronounced Maria.

So we've got some great names.

We've got...

We've got Della Revere.

We've got Afra.

Where are all these names now?

Let's get them back.

Mariah Edgeworth is significant because she is an Anglo-Irish writer.

She's born in the western part of Ireland.