Maria Edgeworth was as popular in her day as her great contemporary Sir Walter Scott, and 'The Absentee' (1812) is her best novel, a work which vividly evokes the conditions of the Irish peasantry and launches a sustained attack on the Anglo-Irish absentee landlord class. John Ruskin said that 'you can learn more of Irish politics by reading 'The Absentee'] than from a thousand columns out of blue-books.'