Maria Edgeworth 
Castle Rackrent 

The Castle Rackrent estate is owned by four generations of Englishmen, each dissipated, cruel or improvident in some way. Their lives are chronicled by the estate’s Irish steward, Thady Quirk. He is one of the first examples in literature of the unreliable narrator, and as the story progresses we see how the estate is kept from ruin by Quirk’s son – to his own advantage and benefit.