Mary Wollstonecraft

27 April 1759 - 10 September 1797

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.

Milestones

27 April 1759

MW was born in Primrose Street, Spitalfields, centre of the London weaving trade.

Tomalin, Claire. The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft. Penguin, 1992.

Autumn 1786

Having been forced to close her own school, MW finished writing her Thoughts on the Education of Daughters.

Kelly, Gary. Revolutionary Feminism: The Mind and Career of Mary Wollstonecraft. Macmillan, 1992.

28-9

3 January 1792

MW handed the printer her manuscript of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, which she had written in six weeks; it was quickly published.

Tomalin, Claire. The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft. Penguin, 1992.

136, 142

February 1792

MW 's fame began: she was visited by Talleyrand (aristocratic revolutionary and the dedicatee of her Vindication of the Rights of Woman), who was on a secret mission to England from the French government.

Tomalin, Claire. The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft. Penguin, 1992.

146-7

10 September 1797

Eleven days after childbirth, at twenty to eight in the morning, MW died of septicaemia or puerperal fever, having fought against it for longer than anyone expected.

Tomalin, Claire. The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft. Penguin, 1992.

282

Biography

Birth

27 April 1759

MW was born in Primrose Street, Spitalfields, centre of the London weaving trade.

Tomalin, Claire. The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft. Penguin, 1992.