The Education of the Heart. The Correspondence of Rachel Mordecai Lazarus and Maria Edgeworth

In 1815 a young North Carolina schoolteacher who was Jewish wrote to the celebrated Maria Edgeworth to ask why British novelists wrote in such a prejudiced manner about Jews. Maria was so moved by the letter that she set to work on a novel to make amends, and <3>Harrington<1> was published in 1817. The literary exchange that resulted grew into a friendship that lasted until Rachel's death in 1838, and the families continued to correspond until 1942.