Belinda Contains The Complete Text Of The Controversial Original First Edition

"Belinda" was considered controversial in its day for its depiction of an interracial marriage. Edgeworth herself said she removed the interracial marriage from the third edition of the book "because my father has great delicacies and scruples of conscience about encouraging such marriages."

This edition preserves the complete text of the original story which was considered so controversial in its time.

Literary critic George Saintsbury argued that Jane Austen's naturalistic female characters owed a debt to this society novel's spirited heroine. Belinda was itself in the tradition of society novels by writers such as Frances Sheridan and Frances Burney, who also charted the travails of bright young women in search of a good marriage.