About a decade ago, a writer reflected on an aside from Robert Heilbroner's 'The Worldly Philosophers' noting that economist pioneer Maria Edgeworth was friends with the author. The received history of economics was devoid of women, featuring only Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, David Ricardo, and a long line of Jameses and Johns. Maybe it was because the author herself was a 25-year-old woman covering macroeconomics, a field remaining male-dominated and rife with sexism.

She looked up Edgeworth, a famous Irish novelist at the turn of the 19th century who drastically out-earned Jane Austen. Sir Walter Scott was her pen pal and protégé, and Lord Byron envied her. David Ricardo and Thomas Malthus called her a close friend.

She tried to purchase Edgeworth's most famous book, 'Castle Rackrent' from 1800, but it was hard to find in print. What she read shocked her. In the novel, a comedy about the downfall of Irish landowners, Edgeworth didn't just lightly reference economics.

Large chunks were clearly built around Adam Smith's foundational 1776 text 'The Wealth of Nations.' Edgeworth was writing about price setting, monopolies, and productive land management. Economics was in the very title: Smith had called irrationally high land charges 'racked rent.' Academic journals showed that a specialized few had clocked Edgeworth's contribution. Economic historian William Henderson once called 'Castle Rackrent' a 'literary extension' of Smith's work, arguing it had 'extended the influence' of early economics.

Susan Manly at the University of St. Andrews had also written about Edgeworth's heavy use of economics. She ordered and read other Edgeworth books, many featuring barely concealed lessons in early political economy. In 'Letters for Literary Ladies,' published in 1795, Edgeworth applied Smith's criticisms of monopoly to the gendered labor market, arguing men were holding back the economy of ideas by locking women out of literature and academics — a kind of protectionism.

Her 1809 book 'Ennui' built on Smith's and Malthus's ideas to argue for broad education and free trade. Her writing for children were full of tales about gains from trade and the division of labor.