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1. Introduction Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849) is currently undergoing an explosive revival. In the 1990s, feminist scholars began to study her novels of manners (Kowaleski-Wallace 1991, Gallagher 1994 and Bilger 1998), several dissertation theses were published on Edgeworth's Irish production (Connolly 1998 and Kilfeather 1989) and some valuable criticism appeared in the realm of postcolonial studies (Perera 1991 and McLoughlin 2002). In Spain, the translation into Spanish of some of Edgeworth's most successful stories saw the light (Edgeworth 2000 and 2004), as well as a biography of the Edgeworths (Barbe i Duran 2002). Regarding scholarship, interest has focused on the parallelisms between the political situation in Ireland and the marital crises in Castle Rackrent (Gonzalez 1994), the contrast between Thady's vernacular language and the voice of the writer in the guise of editor (Andreu 2005) and the translation of Edgeworth's works into French and German (Fernandez 2008 and 2010a). However, it is amazing to observe that there is scarcely any study on the dramatic production of the founder of the Anglo-Irish novel and the so-called "Big House Novel" and scholarship still obsessively revolves around Edgeworth's regional novels. We will try to offer an introduction to Edgeworth's theatre by focussing on the unexplored Comic Dramas in Three Acts (1817). The volume, which was neither translated nor published on the continent, includes three pieces (Love and Law; The Two Guardians and The Rose, Thistle and Shamrock) and appeared when Edgeworth had already achieved a consolidated position as an authoress after the success of Patronage (1814) and Harrington (1817) and just some days before Richard Lovell's death. At that time, Maria was struggling to complete Ormond, and she would be retired from the literary world until the publication of Continuation of Harry and Lucy (1824), Helen (1834), and later, during the Irish Famine, Orlandino (1848). Here we aim to advance some points of the social and political critique contained in these comedies through a description of the main features and interrelated topics which can be usefully explored by referring to Homi K. Bhabha's work on colonial stereotypes and to some conventions on the British stage in that period. Writing on eighteenth-century drama, John Loftis argues that Georgian playwrights largely ignored both social dislocations and the sufferings of persons of lower rank at the same time that they kept as silent about political controversy as about economic deprivation. Drama concentrated on personal and domestic concerns; and, whereas the relation between the sexes was important, the exploration of sexual passion was impeded by the custom on the stage (1977: 18-33). Therefore, Loftis labels late eighteenth-century comedies as bland because they took a genial and optimistic view of the human condition and avoided disturbing issues. Such a categorisation can, perhaps, be applied to Sheridan's and Murphy's productions, but not to Edgeworth's plays which, as we will see, touch on all social levels rather than confining themselves to a particular class or place and become a critique of colonialism and patriarchal power. Additionally, it is interesting to revise the validity of the last part of Marilyn Butler's statement when she distinguishes between the "Irish Tales" in Tales of Fashionable Life (first and second series 1809, 1812) and lesser works, such as Comic Dramas, Rosanna and Double Disguise (Popular Tales, 1804): "none of these popular works deal with Irish life in the same detail, or as broadly, as the longer and intellectually more ambitious tales for Maria's own class; they carry no weight as political statements about Ireland" (1972: 125, my italics). Though this is not the place to undertake a comparison with the Irish tales, Comic Dramas is definitely worthy of study and reveals Edgeworth's ambiguous position towards Ireland as a colonised territory. 2. …

Slight Productions: An Introduction to Maria Edgeworth’s Comic Dramas (1817)