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.

Connections

Connections Sort ascending Author name Excerpt
Violence Dorothea Du Bois
In DDB 's fictionalised account of her father, he is irrationally and childishly jealous, given to uttering threats of serious violence. Like Mary Wollstonecraft , Dorothea knew what it was as a child to try...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Anne Katharine Elwood
Some of the British women writers discussed in the text remain well-known, but others have slipped into obscurity. Memoirs includes: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu , Griselda Murray , Frances Seymour, Lady Hertford , Hester Lynch Piozzi
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Marjorie Bowen
The book markedly refrains from celebrating Mary Wollstonecraft as a champion of women's rights or from glorifying her exploits in any way. MB states firmly that Wollstonecraft's most famous book, A Vindication of the Rights...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Alice Meynell
Many of the essays reprinted here focus on women writers who were, to put it mildly, little known to the public in the 1940s. These included: Anna Seward and Joanna Baillie , as well as...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Sarah Josepha Hale
SJH does in the main a fine job in her coverage of British women writers, having something to say even about the extremely obscure. Dorothea Primrose Campbell , for instance (who was living in poverty...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Amelia Opie
Aiming at a reasoned critique, through Adeline and Glenmurray, of Wollstonecraft 's principles, and specifically her relationship with Godwin , AO seems to give higher priority to the intensification of her heroine's virtue, self-sacrifice, and...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Elizabeth Hamilton
Again EH takes the radicals as her target. The phrase modern philosophers was in common use: the Gentleman's Magazine had turned it on Mary Wollstonecraft in reviewing her first major political work. Yet Hamilton makes...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Catherine Hutton
Jane Oakwood's brother has only one woman author (Elizabeth Inchbald ) in his library; Jane on the other hand is a mine of information and opinion about several generations of a female literary tradition...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Clara Balfour
In her general overview of the history of English literature during these centuries, she focuses especially on English poets because as she says, great poets not only give form, power and beauty to a nation's...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Mary Matilda Betham
Catharine Macaulay , she insists, was pleasing and delicate in her person, and a woman of great feeling and indisputable abilities, though the democratic spirit of her writings has made them fall into disrepute.
Feminist Companion Archive.
She...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Helena Wells
HW 's narrator represents a youthful reader exclaiming in disgust, And this is called a novel? . . . Why there is not an old castle to be pried into, nor a rusty key found...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Hester Mulso Chapone
HMC was still reading and commenting on others' works into her old age. She read and remarked on Hester Piozzi , Charlotte Smith , Edward Gibbon , Erasmus Darwin 's The Loves of the Plants...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Sophia Lee
The preface to this book, newly written for its publication, is SL 's major critical statement about the woman's literary tradition and her own place in it. She mentions the hostile reception of her own...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Ray Strachey
The book starts with an account of Mary Wollstonecraft 's work, and proceeds decade by decade, citing Florence Nightingale , Josephine Butler , John Stuart Mill , Sophia Jex-Blake , and many others. Its heroine...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Anna Seward
AS 's correspondence often deals with literary matters as well as with social matters and personalities. She writes with astonishing freedom to Hester Piozzi about the latter's travel book Observations and Reflections: not only...

Timeline

December 1765: In the parish of St Botolph without Bishopsgate,...

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December 1765

In the parish of St Botolph without Bishopsgate, London, a parish council meeting heard several Disputes whether women householders who paid the poor rate had a Right to Vote for Parish Officers.

1782: Gilbert's Act stated that only the disabled...

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1782

Gilbert's Act stated that only the disabled should receive poor relief in workhouses; the able-bodied were to find work outside, or be provided with outdoor relief if there was no work.

After 1 February 1785: M. Peddle (a gifted, little-known, Evangelical...

Women writers item

After 1 February 1785

M. Peddle (a gifted, little-known, Evangelical woman of Yeovil in Somerset, who later issued a conduct book under the name of Cornelia) published a biblical paraphrase in novelistic style: The Life of Jacob.

May 1788: The Analytical Review: or history of literature...

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May 1788

The Analytical Review: or history of literature domestic and foreign began publication, edited by Thomas Christie and published by Joseph Johnson .

March 1791-March 1796: The Bon Ton Magazine, or, Microscope of Fashion...

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March 1791-March 1796

The Bon Ton Magazine, or, Microscope of Fashion and Folly set out to chart the sex scandals of the day, with close attention to court cases, gossip, and the implications for social class.

1797: Thomas Gisborne's Enquiry into the Duties...

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1797

Thomas Gisborne 's Enquiry into the Duties of the Female Sex (a reaction to the writings of radicals like Wollstonecraft ) was published.

1798: Richard Polwhele published The Unsex'd Females,...

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1798

Richard Polwhele published The Unsex'd Females, his notorious attack on Wollstonecraft and other active radicals.

April 1798: With debating clubs under threat from British...

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April 1798

With debating clubs under threat from British government repression, and the brief era of women's debating clubs over, one club debated the topic of women's writing versus women's domesticity.

2 July 1798: The conservative Lady's Monthly Museum: or...

Writing climate item

2 July 1798

The conservative Lady's Monthly Museum: or polite repository of amusement and instruction published its first number. Sometimes called The Ladies' Monthly Museum . . . it ran until the 1830s.

9 July 1798: George Canning, writing in the Anti-Jacobin,...

Women writers item

9 July 1798

George Canning , writing in the Anti-Jacobin, lambasted sensibility as a literary mode stemming from France, from Rousseau , and from diseased fancy, effeminacy, and self-obsession.

1805: George Nicholson compiled and published at...

Women writers item

1805

George Nicholson compiled and published at Poughnill near Ludlow in ShropshireThe Advocate and Friend of Woman, an anthology of excerpts.

Between 1881 and 1886: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony,...

Writing climate item

Between 1881 and 1886

Elizabeth Cady Stanton , Susan B. Anthony , and Matilda Joslyn Gage published the first three volumes of their History of Woman Suffrage. They dedicated the first volume to the memory of Mary Wollstonecraft .

9 July 1885: Karl Pearson (then a solemn, rationalist...

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9 July 1885

Karl Pearson (then a solemn, rationalist young barrister) held the first meeting of a society designed to talk about sex in a spirit of high seriousness and sense of intellectual adventure:
Walkowitz, Judith R. “Science, Feminism and Romance: The Men and Women’s Club 1885-1889”. History Workshop Journal, Vol.
21
, No. 1, pp. 36-59.
37
the Men and Women's Club

1895: Sigmund Freud and Josef Breuer published...

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1895

Sigmund Freud and Josef Breuer published their influential Studies on Hysteria, a foundational text for psychoanalysis.

Texts

Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Vindication of the Rights of Men. Joseph Johnson, 1790.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Vindication of the Rights of Men. Cambridge University Press, 2010, http://www.cambridge.org/series/sSeries.asp?code=CLOR.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Joseph Johnson, 1792.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Editor Poston, Carol H., Norton, 1988.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Cambridge University Press, 2010, http://www.cambridge.org/series/sSeries.asp?code=CLOR.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. Collected Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft. Editor Wardle, Ralph M., Cornell University Press, 1979.
Salzmann, Christian Gotthilf. Elements of Morality. Translator Wollstonecraft, Mary, Joseph Johnson, 1790.
Fawcett, Millicent Garrett, and Mary Wollstonecraft. “Introduction”. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, New Edition, T. F. Unwin, 1891.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. “Introduction”. Mary; and, The Wrongs of Woman, edited by Gary Kelly, Oxford University Press, 1980, p. vii - xxviii.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark. Joseph Johnson, 1796.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark. Cambridge University Press, 2010, http://www.cambridge.org/series/sSeries.asp?code=CLOR.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. Editors Mee, Jon and Tone Brekke, Oxford University Press, 2009.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. Mary: A Fiction. Joseph Johnson, 1788.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. Mary; and, The Wrongs of Woman. Editor Kelly, Gary, Oxford University Press, 1980.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. Origin and Progress of the French Revolution. Joseph Johnson, 1794.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. Original Stories from Real Life. Joseph Johnson, 1788.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. Posthumous Works. Editor Godwin, William, Joseph Johnson, 1798.
Wollstonecraft, Mary, editor. The Female Reader. Joseph Johnson, 1789.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. The Works of Mary Wollstonecraft. Editors Todd, Janet and Marilyn Butler, Pickering, 1989.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. “The Wrongs of Woman; or, Maria. A Fragment”. Posthumous Works, edited by William Godwin, Joseph Johnson, 1798, p. Vols. I - II.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. Thoughts on the Education of Daughters. Joseph Johnson, 1787.