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Mary and the Wrongs of Woman
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About the author
Mary Wollstonecraft
450 books961 followersMary Wollstonecraft was an eighteenth century British writer, philosopher, and feminist. Among the general public and specifically among feminists, Wollstonecraft's life has received much more attention than her writing because of her unconventional, and often tumultuous, personal relationships. After two ill-fated affairs, with Henry Fuseli and Gilbert Imlay, Wollstonecraft married the philosopher William Godwin, one of the forefathers of the anarchist movement; they had one daughter, Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. Wollstonecraft died at the age of thirty-eight due to complications from childbirth, leaving behind several unfinished manuscripts.
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 Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), in which she argues that women are not naturally inferior to men, but appear to be only because they lack education. She suggests that both men and women should be treated as rational beings and imagines a social order founded on reason.
After Wollstonecraft's death, Godwin published a Memoir (1798) of her life, revealing her unorthodox lifestyle, which inadvertently destroyed her reputation for a century. However, with the emergence of the feminist movement at the turn of the twentieth century, Wollstonecraft's advocacy of women's equality and critiques of conventional femininity became increasingly important. Today Wollstonecraft is regarded as one of the founding feminist philosophers, and feminists often cite both her life and work as important influences.
Information courtesy of Wikipedia.org
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 Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), in which she argues that women are not naturally inferior to men, but appear to be only because they lack education. She suggests that both men and women should be treated as rational beings and imagines a social order founded on reason.
After Wollstonecraft's death, Godwin published a Memoir (1798) of her life, revealing her unorthodox lifestyle, which inadvertently destroyed her reputation for a century. However, with the emergence of the feminist movement at the turn of the twentieth century, Wollstonecraft's advocacy of women's equality and critiques of conventional femininity became increasingly important. Today Wollstonecraft is regarded as one of the founding feminist philosophers, and feminists often cite both her life and work as important influences.
Information courtesy of Wikipedia.org
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 26, 2025
Ok, hear me out: its impact, even though delayed, is unquestionable and it is definitely The Book of proto-feminist sentimentalism. That said, I didn’t find it particularly entertaining… Mary, A Fiction definitely caught my interest more than The Wrongs of Women, or Maria; A Fragment, but none of them filled me with enjoyment.
Regardless of whether it is fun or not, though, I think it’s an essential read for people who enjoy elizabethan literature - and it is also pretty awesome to know that there was a woman writer in the 18th century openly fighting for women’s rights. As Wollstonecraft says herself, quoting the Bible, men’s horses and asses were as much of their property as their wives. Despite the times having (thankfully!) changed, there is so much in the book that is still true today… the dictionary definition of a classic, from beginning to end. So many references to canons of the European zeitgeist of the time… I’m now very excited to read Rousseau’s Confessions (of which I got an old Penguin copy at Oxfam in London hehehe)! Also, quick congrats to the writer of the Introduction for the Oxford edition - you will undoubtedly be quoted in my essay.
Regardless of whether it is fun or not, though, I think it’s an essential read for people who enjoy elizabethan literature - and it is also pretty awesome to know that there was a woman writer in the 18th century openly fighting for women’s rights. As Wollstonecraft says herself, quoting the Bible, men’s horses and asses were as much of their property as their wives. Despite the times having (thankfully!) changed, there is so much in the book that is still true today… the dictionary definition of a classic, from beginning to end. So many references to canons of the European zeitgeist of the time… I’m now very excited to read Rousseau’s Confessions (of which I got an old Penguin copy at Oxfam in London hehehe)! Also, quick congrats to the writer of the Introduction for the Oxford edition - you will undoubtedly be quoted in my essay.
August 2, 2025
this was soooo goooood. i hadn’t read any wollstonecraft before this and it was a great first impression. i definitely liked her fist story ‘mary’ more so than ‘the wrongs of women’ though they were both very enjoyable and thought provoking. how Mary and her thoughts were described reminded me a lot of of Maggie from the mill on the floss and george eliot’s writing so i LOVED it.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews