The Project Gutenberg eBook, Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales, by Maria
Edgeworth, Edited by Henry Morley

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales

Author: Maria Edgeworth

Release Date: April 22, 2005 [eBook #2129]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MURAD THE UNLUCKY AND OTHER TALES***

Transcribed from the 1891 Cassell & Company edition by David Price, email
ccx074@coventry.ac.uk

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
Edgeworth was in that year removed to a school in London, and her
holidays were often spent with her father's friend Thomas Day, the author
of "Sandford and Merton," an eccentric enthusiast who lived then at
Anningsley, in Surrey.

Maria Edgeworth--always a little body--was conspicuous among her
schoolfellows for quick wit, and was apt alike for study and invention.
She was story-teller general to the community. In 1782, at the age of
fifteen, she left school and went home with her father and his third
wife, who then settled finally at Edgeworthstown.

At Edgeworthst