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.
Stipple engraving of Mary Wollstonecraft by James Heath after the painting by John Opie. She is wearing a light, loosely-fitting gown with high waist and a folded cap like a turban.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Textual Features Charlotte Yonge
The second volume is again rich in women's writing. Its first item is Elizabeth Gunning 's Family Stories; or, Evenings at my Grandmother's. CY mentions with approval another item, A Puzzle for a Curious...
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 Ann Yearsley
A notice in the Analytical Review (perhaps by Mary Wollstonecraft ) complained that AY did not deserve her current fame: she certainly has abilities, an independent mind and a feeling heart; but she was...
Textual Features Dorothy Wordsworth
What she does not write may sometimes be regretted. She recorded the arrival of Mary Wollstonecraft 's life, etc. (her Posthumous Works, including The Wrongs of Woman; or, Maria) on 14 April 1798...
Publishing Virginia Woolf
The Nation and Athenæum printed VW 's essay on Mary Wollstonecraft .
Woolf, Virginia, and Michèle Barrett. Women and Writing. Women’s Press.
96
Intertextuality and Influence Elizabeth Pipe Wolferstan
A few statements are footnoted to their originators, whom EPW has either paraphrased or versified: Sherlock and Lavater are her favourites, but she also draws on lighter writers like Horace , Swift , and Coleridge
Friends, Associates Helen Maria Williams
That year HMW was introduced by Dr John Moore to Burns , with whom she then corresponded. She met Samuel Rogers (in November 1787), Hester Lynch Piozzi , and Sir Joshua Reynolds . The year...
Friends, Associates Helen Maria Williams
In Paris HMW frequented Mme Roland 's salon, and she and Stone became close friends of Roland and her husband . Those who visited HMW early in her time in Paris included Mary Wollstonecraft (who...
Literary responses Helen Maria Williams
A respectful review by Mary Wollstonecraft in the Analytical praised Williams's calm domestic scenes,
Wollstonecraft, Mary. The Works of Mary Wollstonecraft. Editors Todd, Janet and Marilyn Butler, Pickering.
7: 251
her landscapes, and her convincing characters from nature, as well as the feminine sweetness in her style and...
Literary responses Helen Maria Williams
The book had a good review, perhaps by Mary Wollstonecraft , in the Analytical for December 1790. The interesting, unaffected letters which this pleasing writer has now presented to the public
Wollstonecraft, Mary. The Works of Mary Wollstonecraft. Editors Todd, Janet and Marilyn Butler, Pickering.
7: 322
reminded the...
Author summary Anna Wheeler
Anna Wheeler has been called the most important feminist after Mary Wollstonecraft and before Emmeline Pankhurst .
Roberts, Marie Mulvey et al., editors. “Introduction”. The Reformers: Socialist Feminism, Routledge/Thoemmes Press, p. xi - xv.
xii
Her deep involvement in the Owenite Socialist Movement led her to translating work by French Saint-Simonians and...
Education Anna Wheeler
In between constant pregnancies and nursing, AW began to educate herself. She read French and German philosophy and the classics, which she had imported from England. The most influential text she read was Mary Wollstonecraft
Textual Features Anna Wheeler
The Appeal begins with an Introductory Letter to Mrs. Wheeler in which William Thompson expresses his reasons for writing the Appeal: an attempt to arrange the expression of those feelings, sentiments, and reasonings, which...
Literary responses Jane West
When the fourth volume appeared in 1789, the Critical found it heavy, languid and uninteresting, and judged the serial publication to have been a mistake.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall.
68 (1789): 495
Andrew Becket in the Monthly and Mary Wollstonecraft
Literary responses Jane West
This work had the unusual distinction of earning approving comments from both Austen and Wollstonecraft . The contrasted sisters are generally seen as an important source for Austen 's Sense and Sensibility, and the...

Timeline

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

Building item

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...

Building item

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...

Writing climate item

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...

Building item

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...

Building item

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,...

Building item

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...

Building item

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...

Building item

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...

Building item

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.