Kathryn Kirkpatrick suggests that the novel "both borrows from and originates a variety of literary genres and subgenres without neatly fitting into any one of them".[5] It satirises Anglo-Irish landlords and their overall mismanagement of the estates they owned at a time when the English and Irish parliaments were working towards formalising their union through the Acts of Union. Through this and other works, Edgeworth is credited with serving the political, national interests of Ireland and the United Kingdom the way Sir Walter Scott did for Scotland.[6]
Castle Rackrent is a dialogic novel, comprising a preface and conclusion by an editor bookending a first person narrative proper. It is widely regarded as the first Irish novel to use the device of a narrator who is both unreliable and an observer of, rather than a player in, the actions he chronicles. It also has a glossary (which was a last-minute addition).[5]
