| Title | : | The Absentee |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0140436456 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780140436457 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 277 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1812 |
The Absentee Reviews
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b079z6rw
Description: Lady Clonbrony, determined to be accepted by fashionable London society, has sunk her family into debt to the moneylender, Mordecai. She wants her son to make a good marriage, but his affections are not to be bought.
Stars Stephen Rea as Lord Colambre, Anna Healy as Grace Nugent, TP McKenna as Lord Clonbrony Francine Mulrooney as Lady Clonbrony and Ben Onwukwe as Whipp. -
Free download available at
Project Gutenberg.
NOTES ON 'THE ABSENTEE'
In August 1811, we are told, she wrote a little play about landlords and tenants for the children of her sister, Mrs. Beddoes. Mr. Edgeworth tried to get the play produced on the London boards. Writing to her aunt, Mrs. Ruxton, Maria says, 'Sheridan has answered as I foresaw he must, that in the present state of this country the Lord Chamberlain would not license THE ABSENTEE; besides there would be a difficulty in finding actors for so many Irish characters.' The little drama was then turned into a story, by Mr. Edgeworth's advice. Patronage was laid aside for the moment, and THE ABSENTEE appeared in its place in the second part of TALES OF FASHIONABLE LIFE. We all know Lord Macaulay's verdict upon this favourite story of his, the last scene of which he specially admired and compared to the ODYSSEY. [Lord Macaulay was not the only notable admirer of THE ABSENTEE. The present writer remembers hearing Professor Ruskin on one occasion break out in praise and admiration of the book. 'You can learn more by reading it of Irish politics,' he said, 'than from a thousand columns out of blue-books.'] Mrs. Edgeworth tells us that much of it was written while Maria was suffering a misery of toothache. -
The Absentee is a novel by Maria Edgeworth, published in 1812 in Tales of Fashionable Life. From what I've read of the author Maria Edgeworth, she was a prolific writer of both adults' and children's literature. She held advanced views, for a woman of her time, on estate management, (which is what the book is about) politics and education, and corresponded with some of the leading literary and economic writers, including Sir Walter Scott and David Ricardo. When I read that she corresponded with Scott and David Ricardo, I had two thoughts. The first was I wondered if people who knew Scott back when he was writing would tell him how wonderful his books were or would they tell him they can't make heads or tails out of what the characters in his novels are saying written in such a strong Scottish dialect. Lines like this are still in my head:
"Our folk had tirled the dead dragoons as bare as bawbees before we were loose amaist.—But when I saw the Whigs a' weel yokit by the lugs to ."
"Then sic a flyting as there wad be between them, a' about Whig and Tory," continued Jenny.
"To be sure," said Cuddie, "the auld leddy 's unto kittle in thae points."
And as for my other question:
"David Ricardo (18 April 1772 – 11 September 1823) was an English political economist. He was one of the most influential of the classical economists, along with Thomas Malthus, Adam Smith, and James Mill."
Sounds awful. Anyway, it is Maria Edgeworth who wrote ,The Absentee so it is to Maria and her book I will return to. There are a few things I learned about our author while reading her book that I found interesting, and odd. The first is about her father.
"Maria Edgeworth was born at Black Bourton, Oxfordshire. She was the second child of Richard Lovell Edgeworth (who eventually fathered 22 children by four wives) and Anna Maria Edgeworth (née Elers); Maria was thus an aunt of Francis Ysidro Edgeworth (whoever that is). She spent her early years with her mother's family in England, until her mother's death when Maria was five. When her father married his second wife Honora Sneyd in 1773, she went with him to his estate, Edgeworthstown, in County Longford, Ireland.
Maria was sent to Mrs. Lattafière's school in Derby after Honora fell ill in 1775. After Honora died in 1780 Maria's father married Honora's sister Elizabeth (then socially disapproved and legally forbidden from 1833 until the Deceased Wife's Sister's Marriage Act 1907).
Not only did her father have 22 children, but he managed to support them all (I guess since it doesn't say they starved to death), and kept getting women to marry him each knowing how many children he had which would grow with each wife he had. I'm not sure I could survive being a step-mother to twenty children. Another thing I learned and puzzled over is:
"In 1802 the Edgeworths toured the English midlands. They then travelled to the continent, first to Brussels and then to Consulate France (during the Peace of Amiens, a brief lull in the Napoleonic Wars). They met all the notables, and Maria received a marriage proposal from a Swedish courtier, Count Edelcrantz. Her letter on the subject seems very cool, but her stepmother assures us in the Augustus Hare Life and Letters that Maria loved him very much and did not get over the affair quickly."
Well, if she loved him and he loved her why didn't she marry him? He did ask her. Oh well, it seems she didn't marry him and they returned to Ireland in 1803. And now on to our story:
The story of THE ABSENTEE is a very simple one, it is about Irish landlords living in England, that's mostly what it's about anyway. For some reason all the Irish landowners, the nobility of the country get the idea that London is the place to be if you want to be part of high society, I don't know why, so off to England everybody goes. Everybody who owned property that is. They leave their estates in the hands of agents or stewards and off they go never to be seen again. Well, not for a while anyway. Some of these agents and stewards are very good men taking very good care of the property and the people living there. Others, however, are not doing a very good job with what they have been given, they are doing the exact opposite, letting the people live in poverty, letting the land go wild again, the buildings are run down and not even safe to live in, although people still do, on and on, and the owners, even if they would care, aren't there to see it. They are living in high society in London. And this is exactly who are main characters are and what they are doing, the Clonbrony family, Lord, Lady, and their son, our main character, Lord Colambre. I can't remember his first name which is odd, you'd think his being the main character I would be able to remember his full name, but I can't. There is also Grace Nugent, cousin to Lord Colambre, she lives with the Clonbrony family ever since her parents died, of what I don't remember.
Lord Clonbrony does care about his land and his people, but he isn't brave enough to take his family back to Ireland, his wife refuses to leave her position in London society. And Lord Colambre cares, but his parents refuse to return to Ireland, and besides all that, they don't really know how bad things are because Lord Clonbrony has complete faith in his steward. As the book opens we find that Colambre has just returned home, he had been away from school, and it doesn't take him long to find out how deep in debt his father is. Living in London and keeping up appearances has put him into so much debt he knows that any day the bill collectors could be knocking at the door and they would be thrown out of their London mansion. Lady Clonbrony refuses to hear how bad things are, she won't listen to a word her husband or son say on the subject. She does know they are in serious trouble though, for she has arranged a marriage between Colambre and a wealthy heiress Miss Broadhurst who has money but no title, while Colambre has a title but no money. You can probably see where this is going, at least in the beginning of the novel, for Colambre ends up in Ireland under a false name going among the people and finding out the true condition of their estate he hasn't seen since he was a child. He is alone when he is there, no Miss Broadhurst in sight, so he hasn't married her yet.
One of the things that bothered me and had me wanting to go into the book and give one of our main characters a piece of my mind is when he falls in love with the "perfect" girl. He will do anything for her, she is beautiful, her voice is beautiful, she is kind, good, all that stuff, until he finds out that her father and mother weren't married - something the love of his life doesn't even know. Now, of course he still loves her, but he can't marry her, and is glad he never made his feelings known, for after all, her parents weren't married. I would have been yelling at him if he were here. My parents weren't married when I was born, they weren't married until a few years later and I never knew it. Not until I was 18 years old, give or take a year, and my aunt felt I needed to know the "truth" about my parents and I should try to not hate them when I know the truth. My mother is in tears while I'm wondering if my parents are really bank robbers or some such thing, and I'm told they weren't married when I was born. I think I disappointed my aunt because I said then the same thing I say now, "Who Cares!"
Anyway, that's most of what the book is about, landowners leaving their lands, spending all their time and money in London, stewards, agents, Lords and Ladies, and a couple of love stories thrown in. Overall I liked the book and definitely would read it again, except (see, there's always a problem with me), the way words are sometimes in all capital letters with no reason or pattern I can follow, here are a few examples:
"A party of superlative fashionables, who had promised TO LOOK IN UPON HER, but who, late as it was, had not yet arrived."
"Lady Clonbrony was so astonished by this impudence of ingratitude, that she hesitated how to TAKE IT; but Miss Nugent, quite coolly, and with a smile, answered, 'A DAY!—certainly—to you, who gave us a month!'
"Miss Nugent had seen him always in large companies, where he was admired for his SCAVOIR-VIVRE."
"Mr. Berryl's education, disposition, and tastes, fitted him exactly for the station which he was destined to fill in society—that of a COUNTRY GENTLEMAN"
" It had occurred to her ladyship that for Miss Somebody, THE COMPANION, of whom she had never in her life thought before, she had omitted to leave a card last time."
"No general officer could talk of his victories, or fight his battles o'er again, with more complacency than Sir Terence O'Fay recounted his CIVIL exploits. "
"She spoke of HER PRIVATE BELIEF; of THE IMPRESSION LEFT UPON HER MIND; and her CONFIDANTIAL reasons for thinking as she did; of her 'having had it from the FOUNTAIN'S head;' and of 'her fear of any COMMITTAL of her authorities.'
....."he saw it long and long before the Union, when FIRST he drank claret at the fashionable clubs."
"He will OBLIGE you, but he will not obey you; he will do you a favour, but he will not do you JUSTICE; he will do ANYTHING TO SERVE YOU, but the particular thing you order he neglects; he asks your pardon, for he would not, for all the goods in his warehouse, DISOBLIGE you; not for the sake of your custom, but he has a particular regard for your family."
"Upon some occasion, one of her friends VENTURED to fear that something she had said was TOO STRONG."
You get the idea. I tried reading it out loud saying the uppercase letters loud, but I thought it sounded silly. Anyway, I am done, I think, and I'm ready to move on to the next book. Well, I'm probably moving on to cleaning the house, a group from our church meets here tonight. Happy reading, without the uppercase letters, it's 4 stars, 3 1/2 with.
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My edition was printed around 1900, which I don't see listed in Goodreads, but that's okay.
This novel was part of a longer collection, printed during the Regency period. It centers around an Irish family of title, the parents having come to England to be part of the Season. Edgeworth takes down the phoniness of high society with as much energy and verve as Cruikshank and the other satirical illustrators did.
Lord Columbre, their son and our hero, doesn't change so much as act as catalyst. He is disgusted by falsity in society, and in his mother, and he's horrified to discover that his father has been wasting the family's fortune on his mother's wish to buy her way into acceptance by the beau monde.
He ends up returning to Ireland and traveling around incognito to see for himself how the family lands are handled, with a sidestep in being almost lured in by a monster-mama and her conniving daughter.
The best scenes, by far, are the ones among the ordinary Irish folk. Some of the high society scenes are sarcastically humorous. But the book is packed with long, somewhat tedious preachments at the reader who might have missed the point; in other reading I discovered that Edgeworth's father saw fit to edit, and add to, his daughter's fiction as he thought it needed. The result were these didactic data dumps to really hammer home the point.
Other warnings for the modern reader: the careless and unexamined anti-semitism really stands out next to the sympathy for the Irish peasantry, and Lord Columbre's insufferable middle-class attitude toward his beloved when he thinks she might be base-born, but when it turns out the father did manage to marry the teenager he winnowed away from her home, got pregnant, and then died on, and further, she's in for a smacking big fortune, well, suddenly it's okay for him to marry her, though she's good as gold and blameless all the way through, the way proper heroines of the time were supposed to be.
Still, one can see why Edgeworth was so popular--and the look into the Irish life of the time is fascinating. -
Here's a great little volume written by one of Jane Austen's contemporaries, a prolific author for whom Austen herself had much admiration. If the novel's subject matter - the social impact of absentee landlords on rural Ireland - gives you pause, then fret not. I too worried that I would not be able to follow such a specific (and now forgotten) social issue, but that proved not to be the case at all. Indeed, Edgeworth assumes zero knowledge on the part of the reader, weaving her subject into an engaging story line.
Above all else, The Absentee is a social polemic taking on the guise of a genteel comedy. It bears many of the same charms (and flaws)as the work of Miss Austen herself. In order for this story to work, the characters need to be wholly one dimensional (they are) and countless coincidences need to take place (they do). Still, if you give yourself up to it, you will find these pages moving faster than a carriage on an open roadway. The prose is delightful, the depictions of Ireland engrossing, and the social commentary dead-on. What more could a person want from a book? -
This was the additional story in my physical book, of which I had zero expectations. The earlier "Castle Rackrent" hadn't impressed me in its demonstration of the Irish regional idiom, so why should I continue?
On the face of it, it only shares 2 common areas with the aforementioned. It's set in Ireland for about a third of the novel only, and amongst a family of Irish Protestant landowners with the narrator largely being the son.
However, it's definitely a different beast. It's exploration of the changing face of Irish society after the Union in 1801 when the Irish Parliament amalgamated with Westminster and the governing class together with its hangers-on emigrated to London is fascinating.
My ignorance of this vital part of Irish history was evident. However, this centralisation to London had considerable financial and social flow-on effects, particularly subsistence farming and the famine of the 1850s causing the mass migration and death by starvation which caused the Irish population to drop by 20-25%. Just like the Highland Clearances, Westminster was too far away and disinterested with the landowners bleeding their tenant farmers dry, and then forcing these people themselves to be absentees, either on the run to avoid their debts or emigrating to forge a new, more successful, version of themselves...to the New World.
Whilst most of the book centres on the landowning Clonbrony/Colambre family, there's a very important part played by the coachman Brays, and the tenant farmer O'Neills who are also toying with being absentees. This gets little critical attention in reviews but it's all part of that Irish diaspora.
If I am being critical then the book could be criticised for its didactic nature, for both Maria, and particularly her father, Richard, were great educators and he was known to be involved in editing her books!
However, the last part of the book is a gem and the epistolary style captures the flavour of the Irish working man.
4 shiny stars. -
I enjoyed this very much. The main story is simple enough. Heir on the verge of inheritance travels to his native Ireland incognito and witnesses the abuse of his tenants at the hands of the steward. Since the steward is also duping his father out of funds and lands, the young man must rush home to save the day. Plus, a little romance.
I felt the romance to be less successful, but the rest of the book was delightful. The opening scenes in London with his mother and the snobs of the ton were brilliant. And I especially loved the sections about Ireland. -
Full Review:
http://wp.me/pns82-145
Maria Edgeworth was a popular author in the early 19th century that has almost been forgotten today. I never heard of her before I saw this Penguin edition at the used book store. Intrigued by a story focusing on the Anglo/Irish aspect of Regency life and bought it. Plus, I liked the cover.
Edgeworth did not like novels, she thought they were frivolous, and instead called her stories “moral tales.” While she does deal more directly with the lower class than Austen did, The Abesntee shares many characteristics of Austen’s best novels: honorable children with weak, fault filled parents, a personal journey of growth through learning for the main character, a romance, characters with extreme prejudices. Edgeworth main theme of The Absentee, that Anglo-Irish landowners should be resident stewards of their estates and not leave the managing to agents while the owners live in London, is admirable but she never delves into the Anglo/Irish question or the religious differences that permeated Ireland. So, while there is a “moral” to the novel, it is a very one-sided ideal and as such, weakens the point. Especially when seen 200 years on.
Edgeworth was a skilled writer that created some of the most uncomfortable scenes and situations I’ve read in a long time. She skewered not only the vacuous attempts of an Anglo-Irish gentlewoman to be admitted into London society, a society that would never accept her no matter what she did, but she also lambasted the haughty, condescending, cruel and pettiness of those same society ladies. Only a few characters are safe from Edgeworth’s wrath and those characters border on being a little too perfect. There were a few too many coincidences to be believable but, unlike real life, plots hinge on coincidental acquaintances. Part romance and part adventure, The Absentee would be an enjoyable read for any fan of Regency literature. -
I read The Absentee as research so I'm not really in a position to comment on how the book ranks as entertainment. That said, I enjoyed this tale of absentee landlords, unscrupulous agents, scurrilous businessmen, stained reputations and rather improbable coincidences. This is an honestly political book and Maria Edgeworth makes her views of absenteeism absolutely plain. It is a landlord's duty, she suggests, to guide their simple tenants to a virtuous and industrious existence and not to beggar their land by extravagant living away from home. It's a thesis that's hard to argue with and there's no doubt that Edgeworth herself practised what she preached but sometimes the broad strokes of her argument are a little hard to take. Her descriptions of the excesses of the Anglo Irish community read uncomfortably close to the similarly extravagant behaviour of the Celtic Tiger years. It's depressing to realise that in some ways not a lot has changed in two hundred years.
Edgeworth writes from within her class. She was one of the ascendancy class herself and stops far short of encouraging anything approaching a revolution. The best way forward in her opinion is for landlords to tend their estates responsibly and through example to inspire their faithful tenants. It's not an argument that sits well with modern independent Ireland but her portrait of Ireland and the Irish is undoubtedly affectionate and she has obviously observed her subject well. With her earlier book Castle Rackrent, she is credited with inventing the regional novel and is known to have influenced writers as diverse as Walter Scott, Ivan Turgenev and Jane Austen. She was certainly one of the earliest writers to employ social realism and for the most part writes an unsentimental account of life in early 19th century Ireland. The only sour note in the book is the character of Mordecai the coach maker. He's painted as a scheming, avaricious jew and this sparkling piece of anti-Semitism was rightly picked up soon after the book's publication. Edgeworth received a letter from an American Jewish woman Rachel Mordecai complaining about her depiction of a Jewish character. In fairness, Edgeworth was so struck by their correspondence that she wrote the novel Harrington as an apology to the Jewish community. But that knowledge doesn't help much when reading The Absentee.
All in all The Absentee is a good read but it's worth a look just for the historical perspective. Fascinating. -
You have to love Maria Edgeworth! Ok, you don't have to, but I do. She's definitely leading the running for Most Middle-Class Novelist Ever, but in a good way. It's amazing how reassuring it is to know that, in addition to true love conquering all, the lovers are going to turn out to be rational beings who enjoy reading, thinking, and learning, and who avoid the temptations to gambling, living beyond their means, and bad estate management.
If you love Wuthering Heights, you sure won't love The Absentee, at least not for the same reasons. But you will learn a lot about how the middle class wrote itself into existence as an identity, and you can also see one Anglo-Irish writer's rampagingly colonial take on how English/Irish identities should get hashed out. -
6 MAY 2016 - recommendation through Bettie. Thank you.
Download at Project Gutenberg -
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1473
16 MAY 2016 - BBC Radio 4 Extra -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b079z6rw
Listening today. -
WONDERFUL STORY OF THE AFFECTS OF IRISH ARISTROCRATS WHO ABANDON THEIR HOMES IN IRELAND TO MOVE TO LONDON. SUPER CHARACTERS AND ENDING
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El ausente es una novela publicada por primera vez en 1812, su autora Maria Edgeworth nacida inglesa pero afincada en Irlanda 🇮🇪.
Nos cuenta las peripecias de Lady Cronbrony quien convenció a su esposo para dejar sus tierras en Irlanda para vivir en Inglaterra 🏴, y así hacerse parte de la alta sociedad inglesa, que considera la mejor del mundo.
Mientras ella se encarga de despilfarrar el dinero en fiestas para agasajar a invitados de alto rango, su marido vive preocupado porque no le es suficiente con las rentas que recibe de las tierras conjuntas de el y su esposa, así que ha tenido que pedir créditos, en medio de este maremágnum se encuentra el hijo Lord Colambre que pronto llegará a la mayoría de edad, que le permitirá tomar posesión de las propiedades de sus padres, el, recién esta de vuelta después de haber estudiado en Cambridge y se siente secretamente atraído por su prima Grace Nugget, una muchacha extremadamente sensible e inteligente que ha vivido con ellos, desde que tiene memoria.
Me ha sorprendido encontrar una lectura distinta y que habla de un tema controvertido de la época, la figura de: “the absentee”, que es como se le llamaba a los grandes señores irlandeses que dejaban sus tierras a cargo de terceros para irse a vivir a Inglaterra, y todo lo que esto implicaba, dejar a sus inquilinos abandonados, sacar la riqueza del país, preferir vivir en otro lugar, etc.
El tema se plantea de la forma más amena y divertida, pues existe una historia de amor tanto romántico como un amor a la patria, y también una crítica a la sociedad inglesa, lo que debió haber sido este libro en aquellos tiempos para los ingleses.
Lady Cronbory tristemente desprecia lo irlandés ☘️ pero sin saberlo o sin querer darse cuenta, ella es despreciada y hasta objeto de bromas maliciosas por parte de aquellas personas que quiere agradar, en un párrafo comentan:
"Si supieras todo lo que soporta para parecer, hablar, moverse y respirar como una inglesa, la compadecerías",
Pues ella tiene un fuerte acento irlandés que busca ocultar, también trata de copiar los decorados de otras casas, pero todo eso es infructuoso hasta el momento, pues de un modo u otro aceptan relacionarse con ella, pero le demuestran que es una persona no inglesa y que nunca será aceptada en los círculos más encumbrados.
Su idea es casar a su hijo con una heredera inglesa, pero el no se encuentra interesado en amores, más bien trata de descubrir su identidad, Irlanda es un país desconocido para el, se fue cuando era un niño, e Inglaterra solo ha sido su mundo académico pero no tiene tantos amigos ni le gustan las frivolidades, por lo que se embarca en un viaje para conocer sus raíces.
Estando en Irlanda conoce mucha gente buena, pero también maliciosa, y pasan muchas cosas que a veces nos hacen reír, otras emocionarnos o sufrir.
Desgraciadamente no encontré el libro en español, pero aún así lo disfrute muchísimo y no entiendo porque es hasta cierto punto desconocido, estando a la altura de Austen, Brontë, Dickens u otro apellido literario ilustre, sospecho que tenga que ver con la crítica a la sociedad inglesa, a la que muestra sin sutilezas, como una sociedad elitista, racista, hipócrita y muy interesada.
En ningún momento decae la lectura y el final es perfecto. Una de mis mejores lecturas y descubrimientos de este año sin duda.
Esta cita describe un poco el espíritu del libro:
Si la gente se quedara en su propio país, viviera en sus propias propiedades y matara su propio cordero, el dinero nunca faltaría." -
3.5 stars. An entertaining, engaging novel about a young Irish gentleman, Lord Colambre. He is about to come of age and inherit his father’s two Irish estates. Lord Colambre has a Cambridge education and his family now live In London, having left Ireland around fifteen years ago. Lord Colambre decides to go back to visit his father’s estates incognito. He firstly stays in Dublin where he meets Lady Dashfort and her widowed daughter, Lady Isobel. He is charmed by the beautiful Isobel. From Lady Dashfort he learns that his cousin, Grace Nugent, was born out of wedlock. This creates complications for Lord Colambre as he is in love with Grace Nugent.
Readers who like Victorian novels should find this an enjoyable reading experience. It is not overly long, my copy being 320 pages. This book was first published in 1812. -
1.5/5 stars
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3.5 I surprisingly enjoyed this! More to come…
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“How transient are all human joys, especially those of vanity” (27).
“People usually revenge themselves for having admired too much, by afterwards despising and depreciating without mercy – in all great assemblies the perception of ridicule is quickly caught and quickly too revealed” (29).
“It is a pity it is only acting” (77).
“Those who are best acquainted with the heart or imagination of man will be most ready to acknowledge that the combined charms of wit, beauty, and flattery, may, for a time, suspend the action of right reason in the mind of the greatest philosopher, or operate against the resolutions of the greatest of heroes” (100).
“'It is difficult to measure danger when it is over—past danger, like past pain, is soon forgotten,' said the old general. 'At all events, I rejoice in your present safety'” (177).
Maria Edgeworth presents slices and fragments of her era in a variety of images, conflicts, settings, and characters. There are many things the reader will learn about the societies in England and Ireland in the early nineteenth century. The divide between the two linked societies are presented early in the text in the form of Lady Clonbrony. The truth is most horrifying thing to this Lady, her need to hide her past through subterfuge and deny her Irish origins. At its heart, the novel is a top notch tennis match of social volleys and returns with the author focusing upon the variety of influences the English landowners have on their Irish serfs. The real social hierarchy is constantly flowing under the surface of a bulk of the dialogue. Subjugation of the Irish, with the tacit authorization of the pope, is presented through the lens of two different overseers on Irish lands. The treatment of the Irish is an education about how the farmers were swindled and exploited by the English during the entirety of the nineteenth century. One of the weak aspects of the novel is the shift in the mein of the main character in order to heighten the tension and conflict within the novel. The insertion of a siren into the text could have been played to great effect, instead the shift in the demeanor of the main character in order to fall under the spell of the woman makes the otherwise strong and independent main character weak. Rather than deepen the conflict of the story, it takes away from force of the main character. -
Young Lord Colambre sees that Lady Clonbrony, his mother's attempts to get into London society are being ridiculed behind her back, and putting his father ever deeper into debt. He travels to Dublin then incognito onto his father's Irish estates which are being run by agents on behalf of the absentee landlord. The first estate he visits is well run by a kindly agent, but the second and largest is in ruin, in the hands of an unscrupulous villain who thinks nothing of putting the tenants' rent up so high they can't pay and are made homeless. Colambre returns home to persuade his parents to return to Ireland which he eventually manages to do, but not without the side plot of finding out that his supposed illegitimate cousin Grace Nugent, whom he loves, but convention won't allow him to marry, is in fact an heiress, legitimate and therefore perfectly acceptable. Written in 1812, Maria Edgeworth tells of the hardships endured by the Irish due to the absentee landlords who seem to care nothing for their estates apart from the money made from them. Very much of its time, it is a heartwarming story. Compared to her other novel on this subject. Castle Rackrent, it is a much more readable and enjoyable tale.
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The back of the book assures me that Edgeworth "influenced writers as disparate as Scott, Thackery, and Turgenev." All apologies to those gentlemen, but they certainly must have had the chimerical ability to produce gold from lead, if The Absentee is truly representative of Edgeworth's work. The story held promise enough--the son of an Irish nobleman who had relocated his family to London years before and continued to live upon the income of his estate back home decides to travel incognito to the old country and find out what effect absentee ownership has had on the Irish people.
Sadly, much of the novel bogs down in leaden, boring love plots and interminable dinner parties where the young man's mother affects an English accent to hide her Irish identity. A few chapters in the middle, where we get glimpses of the struggling farmers and workers who have lived on the estate lands for generations, are genuinely affecting and focused; otherwise, this is third-rate melodrama tarted up to look like social commentary. Also: check out the brutally anti-Semitic charcter of creditor Mordecai, a heartless Jew who makes Shylock look principled. What a mess. -
I am really torn with how I feel about this novel. It started out incredibly slow and the "old" language made it difficult to read. The pace of the book never really picked up, and there were many times where I considered abandoning the book, but there was something about the storyline, or maybe the concept itself, that kept me reading.
The fact that the father would become an absentee lord in Ireland, just so that his wife could have the fashion and society of London was crazy! The wife was constantly being humiliated by the social circle that she desperately wanted to be a part of, the husband was drowning in debt because he was being swindled out of money by his agents, and the land (and all of tenants living there) were falling to ruin.
I loved Colambre (the son), he really was a hero in this novel! No only did he investigate what was happening, but he worked tirelessly to make things right. Some parts were really exciting, but others really slow, hence my dilemma. I'm glad I read it, it was interesting, but I would probably not read it again. -
This could be crudely and cruelly summed up as a second-rate Jane Austen with a bit of added social commentary. The story is indeed a romance and Edgeworth does not have Austen's lightness of touch or sense of pace in her writing. The social commentary is both a condemnation of absentee landlords from Irish estates, bleeding the locals to fund their brash London socialite lifestyle, and a critique of the shallowness of that very snobbish society. Interesting moral slant on marriage appears: our hero does not scruple against marrying a girl who is his natural cousin, but he does fight shy of a girl who may be illegitimate (which seems to presume that the mother's morals were at fault and would be soon apparent in the daughter).
As I say, it does not quite have the sparkle of Austen, nor does it display the characterisation of Dickens, but that does not mean it is not a very good and very enjoyable read. -
This book was very hard to get into, and I came very close to abandoning it, but about 1/3 of the way in it became much more interesting.
It is about an absentee landowner from Ireland, who is living in upper society ranks in London in order to appease his wife's desire for the good life. The family is close to financial ruin, and the mother is trying to marry her son off to an heiress so she can continue her lifestyle and avoid going back to Ireland. However her son is not interested in marrying for money and status, and has fallen in love with his illegitimate cousin. this marriage would be a scandal so the two agree to go their separate ways, until the truth of Ms. Nugent's lineage is revealed.
The best scenes in this book is when the young Lord Colambre goes back to Ireland to discover the truth about his father's landholdings and financial status. -
I really enjoyed this family saga about (Absentee) Irish landlords who leave their estates in the hands of unscrupulous agents while they enjoy the highlife in England.
The book includes a solid dose of romance, incognito travel, reuniting of estranged families, fortunes made and lost and a biting social commentary about the responsibility of landlords to their tenants and how a local hands on friendly approach is much better than just sitting back and counting the cash.
It also highlights that it is better to have genuine friends whatever class they may be from rather than trying to buy your way into society.
3 Stars – relatively short, definitely entertaining and with a hero you could fall in love with (after you have slapped him for being so judgemental). -
I read this because Maria Edgeworth was one of (surprise, surprise!) Jane Austen's favorite novelists of her time. If you like Austen's writing style, you'll love this book— it's just as clever, with entertaining dialogue, but just a little bit less focused on the romance and involves characters of broader social classes. In short, it's about a young man who's mother forces their family to live in London and is embarrassed of being Irish, and his father is an absentee Lord of an Irish estate. The young man explores to Ireland on his own, under a fake name, so he can see if his mother's prejudices are true. There was strong character development, and the situations he found himself in were amusing and captivating. I listened to the audiobook on Youtube, which was very well done.
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Is there some deux ex machina? For sure.
Is that unusual for novels from this period? Not really.
Did I thoroughly enjoy the novel nonetheless? Most definitely.
Also, as I see it, the main goal of this novel is to convince its readers about the evils of being an absentee and to paint an honest and just picture of Ireland for those who are prejudiced against it. Of course, doing all of this in the much more accessible and enjoyable form of a novel. -
This hilarious story starts with a conversation between some
Lords and Ladies trying to get to the bottom of the mystery of
just how the Clonbronys can afford to live in the decadent style
that has all London talking. They are Irish gentry and the son
will have a fabulous estate when somebody dies - but how do they
manage to keep up at present. Clonbrony's son Lord Colambre is
an unwilling eavesdropper and after an altercation over repairs
to a carriage in which his father is named in a group who are
thought to be living above their means he decides to visit the
family's Irish estate (incognito) to see the reality of things down on the farm. He also has a vested interest in that he is being forced to
propose to an heiress, a Miss Broadhurst (who seems pretty sensible)
when his heart is totally with Grace Nugent.
First arriving in Dublin he is appalled at the beggars that rush
him, to take his luggage to the hotel. He then meets Sir James
Brooke who gives him some excellent advice to do with absentee
landlords but unfortunately he is recalled to his regiment and
even though he gives Colambre a serious warning, without his
steady influence the sensible young Lord falls heavily under the
spell of the ghastly Lady Dashfort and her daughter Isabel as she
purports to show him the "real Ireland" - an Ireland of indulgence
and excesses.
Maria Edgeworth wrote the book in about 1812 to rave reviews and
attempts to show both sides of the picture. Lord Colambre, as plain
Mr. Evans, meets Mr. Burke, the agent looking after his own estate
and finds him honest and trustworthy, striving to get the best
from both estate and tenants for an absentee landlord who is a
complete stranger to him. The other side of the coin is Mr.
Garranghty, Lord Clonbrony's agent and a grasping fraudster who is
determined to keep all the tenants in poverty while he and his
brother live like Lords. Colambre manages to get home to his
father, right the terrible wrong his family is unconsciously doing
to the poor tenants by forcing them to return to Ireland to live!!
But wait, that's not the end!! Colambre has heard stories questioning
the legitimacy of Grace Nugent's birth and while he loves her more
than ever, feels he cannot wed someone whose birth right is under
a cloud!! He seems a bit pompous but it is supposed to be 1800 and
he is clearing Grace from doubts as well. So even though it is
wickedly funny and may have bought the public's attention to the
awful problem of Ireland's absentee landlords, when it comes to
taking a stand against the plight of illegitimacy etc, Edgeworth
was content to conventionalize Lord Colambre and inadvertently
make Grace a true heroine. -
“The Absentee” is a forgettable book. There’s nothing terribly wrong with it and it’s mildly entertaining, but it doesn’t leave much of an impression. The main issue is the protagonist, Lord Clonbrony. He’s such a nice, smart, kind young man that I sort of wanted to punch him in the face. It’s very obvious that the reader is supposed to be on his side and root for him. It’s so obvious that it made me turn against him.
There are a few interesting aspects of the novel. Edgeworth captures the hilarious details of the polite warfare that upper class ladies wage against each other. There is also an interesting exploration of the uneasy mingling of Irish and British society in the 1800’s. Unfortunately these gems are buried in a plot following the dull Lord Clonbrony and dull lady he’s in love with. I breezed through the end because, like a badly written romantic comedy, I knew the ending word-for-word without reading it. -
The omniscient 3rd person narrator gives many different perspectives, but most of them are short lived, not extended, so it doesn't feel like too much head hopping to me. Perhaps because it is always clear that the narrator is none of the characters. So the narrator tells us that Lady Clonbrony is trying really hard to make a good impression and immediately tells readers how her actions are being received by others (generally not well). One lesson from this book that is still applicable today is don't go into debt trying to impress people who are determined to not accept you. I think that the critiques The Absentee makes about British and Irish society in the early 18oos are valid, but I am skeptical of the solutions it puts forward. It can be rather heavy-handed at times repeating in the mouths of peasants "If only our landlord was present to take care of us and did not leave us at the mercy of thieving middlemen, If only our landlord was here to encourage us to be industrious and better ourselves with education (to be better peasants - not to social climb)." The book also 100% uses the ideology that people from different nations (like Britain or Ireland) all have similar 'national character' that is 'natural' to them because they are, for example, Irish. The Absentee has good Irish characters and villainous Irish characters. It also has an antisemitic caricature who is a main villain and shows up several times.
I read this for Book Riot's 2023 Read Harder Challenge #6 read a book I DNFed. I started it almost 2 years ago but I was having a rough time, so my DNFing doesn't really reflect on the book. The romance plot was kind of sweet, at 85% through, I thought things would be easy to tie up in like 3 pages, but I feel like Edgeworth had fun with sending the hero hither and thither to search for papers and a squirrelly old man.
Apparently Edgeworth was one of Jane Austen's favorite writers, so I am going to count this for Book Riot's Challenge #2: Read on of your favorite author's favorite books.
