The Birthday Present

The Birthday Present by Maria Edgeworth is a simple, didactic, and vividly written story about a young girl who must learn the tough lessons of modesty and generosity. Rosamond the main character has her friend, Bell's birthday party coming up and to make herself look better, she tries to make a show of her generosity but ends up making a fool of herself. Rosamond's sister Laura is not concerned with making a show and keeps her money until their is a person in need of it, which turns out to shine a lovely light on how generous and kind Laura really is. Rosamond has to learn a tough lesson that I think a lot of young people would appreciate reading about. Many adults I know need to learn this lesson! Because of the broad and universal lesson set in motion by this story I think that it is still relevant to people today and should be shared.

The author's name was Maria Edgeworth was lived and worked int he 19th century. She was a spinster who lived at home with her beloved father and took care of his 21 children he had through several marriages. His last wife, who out lived him, was the same age as Louisa and actually became her best friend. Maria's father was extremely influential in her writing, even controlling in the beginning, not allowing anything to be published until her approved of it. I believe that this story was one of Maria's first ventures into publishing in her name, by herself, without the assistance of her father. They published several parenting volumes together on their beliefs and studies of all the children in the house including, "Parent's Assistant" in which this story first appeared. They primary belief about raising children was that parent must be present in their children's lives and not leave them to be cared for by the nursemaids, as the character Bell was. Rosamond was a common character in Maria's writing, using the young girl as a bad example who learns a lesson in the end. The story falls under domestic fiction which was incredibly popular at the time, although Maria did not choose this genre for this reason, she simply wrote about what she knew. I really enjoyed reading this book and I think that it can certainly be relevant in today's world.