Castle Rackrent is sometimes regarded as the first historical novel, the first regional novel in English, the first Anglo-Irish novel, the first Big House novel, and the first saga novel.[5] William Butler Yeats pronounced Castle Rackrent "one of the most inspired chronicles written in English".[7][8] Sir Walter Scott, who met and carried on a correspondence with Edgeworth,[9][10] credited her novel for inspiring him to write his Waverley series of novels:
"Without being so presumptuous as to hope to emulate the rich humour, pathetic tenderness, and admirable tact, which pervade the works of my accomplished friend, I felt that something might be attempted for my own country, of the same kind with that which Miss Edgeworth so fortunately achieved for Ireland - something which might introduce her natives to those of the sister kingdom in a more favourable light than they have been placed hitherto"[11][12]
The novel is alluded to in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, ‘’A Mother in History’’ by Jean Stafford and Milkman by Anna Burns.
