Longford centre acquires collection of letters: irishness and Jewishness reconnect after 200 years

The Maria Edgeworth Centre has recently taken possession of an extraordinary piece of literary history.
In the first decade of the nineteenth century a remarkable occurrence took place in a small North Carolina town Warrenton. A Jewish merchant with a scholarly bent opened a school for girls. In a day when the education of girls was considered of secondary importance the idea of a sound education in a boarding school was visionary.

While Jews were a respected minority in southern cities, the stereotype of the Jews as Shylock was the universal literary image. Jacob Mordecai depended on his children to help run the school, in particular on his eldest daughter, Rachel.
In preparing herself for her duties, she turned to the treatise on education by the Edgeworths, the remarkable family living in Edgeworthstown, an isolated village at the time.
Rachel entertained herself by reading the charming novels of Miss Edgeworth. One of Maria Edgeworth’s most popular novels appeared in 1812, The Absentee. Miss Mordecai doubtless found the Irish characters charming, with all their wit and eccentricities.

Then her eye beheld the name Mordecai in the novel. “a famous London coachmaker,” a Jewish character described in unflattering terms who obviously played a villain’s role.
Offended by this, Rachel decided to write to Maria Edgeworth for an explanation as to why literary figures in Europe stereotyped Jews as Shylock figures. Taken aback by the correspondence, Maria pledged to make amends and she did this by writing a new novel Harrington in which a boy thoughtlessly instilled with a fear of Jews grows up and falls in love with a Jewess.
This was the beginning of a remarkable friendship between the Edgeworth and Mordecai family the endured until 1942. The two women commented on domestic life in North Carolina and in Edgeworthstown and on science, philosophy, gardening, and politics.

The complete collection of letters were edited and published in 1977 by Edgar E MacDonald. In December of 2023 another remarkable event happened when the Maria Edgeworth Centre received an email from Warrenton in North Carolina, the correspondence indicated that the writer had a letter and some other personal items from Maria Edgeworth, she indicated that she would like to donate them to the Maria Edgeworth Centre.

A week later the precious envelope arrived in Edgeworthstown. Inquiring into the providence of the donation the staff at the Centre were more excited the donation was made by Mary Miley Theobald who was a direct descendent of Rachel Mordecai.

The collection, not seen for over two-hundred years, can be viewed at the wonderful Maria Edgeworth Visitor Centre and Museum in Edgeworthstown.

The Maria Edgeworth Centre will host the 29th annual Maria Edgeworth Festival of Art and Literature in Edgeworthstown on the weekend of May 10 to 12.