Letter from Maria Edgeworth, Edgeworthstown, to Mary and Agnes Berry, 1816 April 3 : autograph manuscript signed.

Introducing her brother Lovell, "who has had so large a share of the evils of life that I cannot help wishing he should now enjoy as much as possible of its blessings;" explaining that Lovell "has been twelve years a prisoner in France - detained by Bonaparte from the time of the breaking out of the war till the allies entered Paris - so that he is a stranger almost in his own country & till the present moment ill health has prevented him from really enjoying the contrast of the society in London & that to which he was condemned in France;" sending the respects of another brother, Sneyd, who much regrets that the Berrys' dinner invitation had failed to reach him when he was in London; commenting on "a most entertaining book" that she is reading, inscribed by the Misses Berry to "the late Mr. Malone" (probably Edmond Malone), and now in the possession of his brother, and her neighbour, Lord Sunderlin; saying "It is interleaved & furnished with prints of Mr. Malone's collecting of all the persons mentioned in The Reminiscences [i.e., Horace Walpole's Reminiscences of the Courts of George I and II, which had been written for the amusement of the Berry sisters] - What a delightful companion Lord Orford must have been & how much we are obliged to those who have preserved in its full animation & elegance the living spirit of his conversation."