Wollstonecraft

Listen to learn about Mary Wollstonecraft’s groundbreaking book of feminist philosophy, her brave and unconventional lifestyle, her political writing on the French Revolution, and her imaginatively written travel book.

After Wollstonecraft's death, her grief-stricken widower, William Godwin, published Memoirs of her life, a revolutionary biography, which inadvertently destroyed her reputation for almost a century.

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See the books

A vindication of the rights of woman, 1792.

This book was so popular that the first edition sold out in the year it was published. One of Wollstonecraft’s main arguments in the book is that women need proper access to education if they want to reach their full potential.

Mary Wollstonecraft. A vindication of the rights of woman, 1792. See record in catalogue.

Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, 1796.

Mary Wollstonecraft broke many barriers in her life and writing. In this travel book, her writing has been described by the current day biographer, Richard Holmes, as having “a new wilderness and richness of emotional rhetoric.”

Mary Wollstonecraft. Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, 1796. See record in catalogue.

Memoirs of the author of a Vindication of the rights of woman, 1798.

William Godwin, in his grief after the death of his wife, Mary Wollstonecraft, wrote this touching memoir of her life. Godwin gives many details about Wollstonecraft’s life which were viewed as unacceptable revelations at the time. Consequently, her reputation took a deep hit.

William Godwin. Memoirs of the author of a Vindication of the rights of woman, 1798. See record in catalogue.