Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Mary Wollstonecraft
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Standard Name: Wollstonecraft, Mary
Birth Name: Mary Wollstonecraft
Married Name: Mary Godwin
Pseudonym: Mr Cresswick, Teacher of Elocution
Pseudonym: M.
Pseudonym: W.
MW
has a distinguished historical place as a feminist: as theorist, critic and reviewer, novelist, and especially as an activist for improving women's place in society. She also produced pedagogy or conduct writing, an anthology, translation, history, analysis of politics as well as gender politics, and a Romantic account of her travels in Scandinavia.
For all the influences that might have been expected to predispose Martineau to admire the work of Mary Wollstonecraft
, she apparently despised the earlier writer as insufficiently self-sufficient. She called Wollstonecraft, with all her...
Occupation
Fanny Holcroft
Lady Mountcashel as a girl had had Mary Wollstonecraft
as her governess; Wollstonecraft too had been dismissed from this post, though she had preserved her friendship with her pupil Margaret, later Lady Mountcashel. FH
's...
Occupation
John Milton
As to poetry, Paradise Lost was quickly recognised as a classic. In 1674, while it was still a very recent text, Dryden
praised it as undoubtedly one of the greatest, most noble, and most sublime...
Occupation
William Godwin
The imprint M. J. Godwin and Company was launched the following year. The business flourished, becoming almost a literary salon like that of Joseph Johnson
: visitors included Germaine de Staël
. It remained, however...
Literary responses
Mary Robinson
A short notice in the Analytical Review, perhaps by Mary Wollstonecraft
, singled out this passage for comment.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. The Works of Mary Wollstonecraft. Editors Todd, Janet and Marilyn Butler, Pickering.
7: 331
Literary responses
Maria De Fleury
The later edition was noticed in the Analytical Review, probably by Wollstonecraft
, as using tame and prosaic language, a faint imitation of Elizabeth Singer Rowe
.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. The Works of Mary Wollstonecraft. Editors Todd, Janet and Marilyn Butler, Pickering.
81-2
Literary responses
Charlotte Smith
Again the Analytical reviewer may have been Wollstonecraft
, and if so she was better pleased than before: another novel, written with her usual flow of language and happy discrimination of manners. . ....
Literary responses
Anna Letitia Barbauld
ALB
's early fame is exemplified in the project of a well-known London printer (reported in January 1787) for a series of plates illustrating works by the most celebrated British Poets. His list began with...
Literary responses
Elizabeth Hands
A brief notice in the Analytical Review written (probably) by Mary Wollstonecraft
early in the year after publication treated EH
fairly scathingly.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. The Works of Mary Wollstonecraft. Editors Todd, Janet and Marilyn Butler, Pickering.
The Sheffield Register carried two poems (a sonnet and an ode) in September which welcome and praise this volume.
Ashfield, Andrew. Emails to Isobel Grundy about Sarah/Susanna Pearson, Harriet Downing.
The Critical Review, too, welcomed it warmly. It quoted in full the introductory sonnet addressed...
Literary responses
Ann Yearsley
The Critical Review, commenting on Poems, on Various Subjects together with the fourth edition of Yearsley's earlier collection, summarised her case against Hannah More and showed considerable sympathy with her: Surely a mother had...
Literary responses
Sarah Harriet Burney
Clarentine was a successful debut. The Critical Review (which opened its brief review on the author's relationship to her elder sister
) said it was greatly superior to novels of the ordinary stamp; and it...
Literary responses
Catherine Hutton
Hutton transcribed onto the flyleaf of her own copy of Oakwood Hall (volume 3) an unattributed opinion, perhaps given before publication. This critic calls the book clever so far as it is a novel, and...
Literary responses
Mary Robinson
A somewhat wordy review in the Analytical, possibly by Mary Wollstonecraft
, says that at least this book will not diminish MR
's high reputation. The characterisation is good and the sentiments just, animated...
Literary responses
Anne Francis
This book was reviewed in the Analytical (probably by Wollstonecraft
), which found it pretty but not above mediocrity, and wished that Charlotte had not had to apologise for the indelicacy of surviving Werther.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. The Works of Mary Wollstonecraft. Editors Todd, Janet and Marilyn Butler, Pickering.
