The life and death of mary wollstonecraft

  • The biography of the feminist behind the revolutionary book "A Vindication of the Rights of Women," a ferocious rejection of traditional femininity.
  • This is an excellent and moving account of a woman taking on the dominant, restricting forces in British society at the end of the 18th Century.
  • Mary Wollstonecraft was the first woman to write about women's emancipation in A Vindication of the Rights of Women in 1792.

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    That life took Wollstonecraft from humble beginnings to the heart of Enlightenment Europe, via a front row seat for the French Revolution, a treasure hunt for stolen silver along the Norwegian coast, and several personal scandals.

    Mary Wollstonecraft’s early life

    Born in 1759 in Spitalfields, London, as the second of seven children, Wollstonecraft did not have the most promising of beginnings. Her family was sliding rapidly down the social scale, as her father quickly squandered the wealth he had inherited.

    Later, Wollstonecraft recalled how he would turn violent after drinking and did not believe in educating girls. “Instead, she was expected to be quiet, sit still and shut up,” says Rowlatt. “Eventually all that injustice bubbled up inside her. And as soon as she started writing it just burst out; she went off like a blender with the lid off.”

    In order to escape her oppressive home life, Wollstonecraft began working as a lady’s companion and governess, forging connections with

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    Witty, courageous and unconventional, Mary Wollstonecraft was one of the most controversial figures of her day. She published A Vindication of the Rights of Women, lived through the Terror in France, had an illegitimate daughter and married the philosopher William Godwin before dying in childbirth at the age of 38.
    Claire Tomalin's first book inaugurated a glittering career, and brought to life one of the great figures in the history of women.

    About Claire Tomalin

    Claire Tomalin was literary editor of the New Statesman then the Sunday Times before leaving to become a full-time writer. Her first book, The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft, won the Whitbread First Book Award, and she has since written a number of highly acclaimed and bestselling biographies.They include Jane Austen: A Life, The Invisible Woman, a definitive account of Dickens' relationship with the actress Ellen Ternan, which won three major literary awards, and Samuel Pepys: The Unequall

  • the life and death of mary wollstonecraft

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    Mary Wollstonecraft

    English writer and philosopher (1759–1797)

    "Wollstonecraft" redirects here. For other uses, see Wollstonecraft (disambiguation).

    Not to be confused with her daughter Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, the author of Frankenstein.

    Mary Wollstonecraft (WUUL-stən-krahft, -⁠kraft;[1] 27 April 1759 – 10 September 1797) was an English writer and philosopher best known for her advocacy of women's rights.[2][3] Until the late 20th century, Wollstonecraft's life, which encompassed several unconventional (at the time) personal relationships, received more attention than her writing. Wollstonecraft fryst vatten regarded as one of the founding feminist philosophers, and feminists often cite both her life and her works as important influences.

    During her brief career she wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children's book. Wollstonecraft is best known for A bris