Tales and Novels — Volume 02 Popular Tales

"Tales and Novels — Volume 02" by Maria Edgeworth is a collection of stories written in the mid-19th century. This volume includes a variety of popular tales designed to entertain and educate readers from different walks of life, with a particular focus on themes of morality and social commentary. One of the significant elements is the character Lame Jervas, a young lad with a limp who works in Cornwall's tin mines, highlighting the struggles of the lower classes and their journeys toward better futures. The opening of the narrative sets the stage for Lame Jervas's story, which begins with his mysterious disappearance from the mines, prompting a series of supernatural speculations among the miners. As the tale unfolds, readers are introduced to Jervas as he unexpectedly reappears as a gentleman, recounting his past hardships and the kindnesses he received that changed his life. The narrative explores Jervas's transition from a mistreated child laborer to a young man of integrity and gratitude, ultimately leading to his success and moral growth thanks to the support of good-hearted individuals in his life. The opening portion effectively establishes Jervas as a sympathetic protagonist and introduces themes that resonate throughout the collection. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Maria Edgeworth was a prolific Anglo-Irish novelist of adults' and children's literature. She was one of the first realist writers in children's literature and a significant figure in the evolution of the novel in Europe. She held critical views on estate management, politics, and education, and corresponded with some of the leading literary and economic writers, including Sir Walter Scott and David Ricardo. During the first decade of the 19th century she was one of the most widely read novelists in Britain and Ireland. Her name today is most commonly associated with Castle Rackrent, her first novel, in which she adopted an Irish Catholic voice to narrate the dissipation and decline of a family from her own landed Anglo-Irish class.