Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0140436456, Paperback)

Lord and Lady Clonbrony are more concerned with fashionable London society than with their responsibilities to those who live and work on their Irish estates. Concerned by this negligence, their son, Lord Colambre, goes incognito to Ireland to observe the situation and to discover the truth about the origins of his beloved cousin Grace. Can he find a solution that will bring prosperity and contentment to every level of society, including his own family? Rich in atmosphere and local character, "The Absentee" (1812) helped establish the regional' novel form, which influenced such varied writers as Scott, Thackeray and Turgenev. In this sparkling satire on Anglo-Irish relations, Maria Edgeworth created a landmark work of morality and social realism.

Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0192816829, Paperback)

Set in London, this novel describes the attitudes of an Irish landowning family towards their tenants, emphasizing the pernicious consequences for Ireland and for the wider world of absentee landownership. The book includes appendices showing how Edgeworth revised the text from the 1st edition, and Edgeworth's "Notes for essay on the genius and style of Burke". "The absentee" (1812) is the second of Maria Edgeworth's novels, the first being "Castle Rackrent" (1800) and is aimed at the general reader as well as for students of early 19th century English and Irish literature, of women's literature and on the historical and the regional novel.

Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 019283830X, Paperback)

Lord Clonbrony and his ambitious, worldly wife lead an extravagant social life in London on the proceeds of their estates in Ireland. Their son, Lord Colambre, refusing to marry the heiress arranged for him by his mother, decides instead to investigate, incognito, the management of the family estates in Ireland. Appalled by the corruption, mismanagement, and poverty he discovers, he sets about finding a solution to his father's debts and the family's wilful indifference. Maria Edgeworth's classic novel combines a fast-miving depiction of national manners with a brilliantly witty expose of the pernicious system of absentee landownership.

Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0554051486, Paperback)

The story of THE ABSENTEE is a very simple one- and concerns Irish landlords living in England- who ignore their natural duties and station in life and whose chief ambition is to take their place in the English fashionable world.' (From Introduction)