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Mary and the Wrongs of Woman
Landmark novel by an early pioneer of women's rights.
In this classic feminist text the author expresses her egalitarian social philosophy in the form of fiction. This story of a woman imprisoned in an asylum by her abusive husband offers a powerful indictment of women's lowly status in eighteenth-century England.
In this classic feminist text the author expresses her egalitarian social philosophy in the form of fiction. This story of a woman imprisoned in an asylum by her abusive husband offers a powerful indictment of women's lowly status in eighteenth-century England.
Paperback
Published February 26, 2009
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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 - 30 of 95 reviews
July 7, 2020
Perhaps the most striking thing about the two novellas collected here is the gap that exists between them. Mary was published in 1788, The Wrongs of Woman in 1798 – a ten-year lacuna in which everything changed for their author. When Mary came out, Mary Wollstonecraft was completely unknown, a struggling writer living alone and with almost no experience of close relationships outside her own family. By the time Wrongs of Woman was published, she had become a famous polemicist and social reformer, been closely involved with three different men, moved to Revolutionary Paris and back again, given birth to two daughters (one out of wedlock), and – not the least significant development – had died. It was a busy time for her.
Given all that, you expect to see a big development in ideas and style from one to the next – and you do. Mary is a slim philosophical fable about a woman stuck in an unhappy marriage. The set-up shows that Wollstonecraft was already concerned about the undesirability of marriage for women, though we see almost nothing of Mary's actual husband in the story, only hearing that ‘the sound of his name made her turn sick’. The focus is more on Mary's internal development, as she educates herself and struggles with her feelings for another man.
There is a lot of high-flown ‘sensibility’ in Mary, often with a rather Gothic overtone of melodrama (‘Shall I ever feel joy? Do all suffer like me?…I weep, a solitary wretch, and the hot tears scald my cheeks’, and so forth). Much of this intensity has a religious colouring, to do with looking forward to when the Lord Omnipotent will reign and wipe the tearful eye. Overall the story is not without interest for those curious about Wollstonecraft's development, but is otherwise a bit sick-making for modern tastes.
The year after Mary came out, the French Revolution happened, kick-starting Wollstonecraft's political engagement – first with the Vindication of the Rights of Men in 1790, and then more explosively with the Vindication of the Rights of Woman in 1792. At the end of that amazing book, she promised to write a follow-up detailing the legal obstacles that women faced in England. This was never actually completed in essay form, but you could certainly see The Wrongs of Woman as a fictional treatment of that subject.
So the Wrongs of Woman is to be considered as mirroring the Rights of Woman. Again, the set-up shows that it is a novel of ideas rather than of characters or events: the heroine, Maria, is exploited by a husband who marries her for her family's money, tries to pimp her out to friends, and finally has her committed to a madhouse. Along the way she meets several other women who are allowed to tell their own stories, each of them adding further examples of the way women are treated by patriarchal social and legal structures that consider women to be property.
The point is hammered home with pleasing directness. We are told of ‘the aggravated ills of life that her sex rendered almost inevitable’; she rails against ‘the institutions of society, which thus enabled men to tyrannize over women’. ‘Was not the world a vast prison, and women born slaves?’ Maria asks herself; and later, ‘Why was I not born a man, or why was I born at all?’
The religiosity of Mary, which was also a major element of the Rights of Woman (an unwelcome one in my view), is mostly absent here. I think the reason religion sits so uneasily with Wollstonecraft's writing is that it offers a kind of hope, and therefore a solution, to the social problems that animate her, by deferring their resolution to the afterlife. This gets in the way of her anger, and I much prefer her when she's righteously angry, which she definitely is throughout The Wrongs of Woman.
Above all, it is the situation of married women that is shown to be completely untenable. ‘Marriage had bastilled me for life,’ Maria says at one point (a timely phrasing for the 1790s). The pervasive double standard, by which men were expected to have their little dalliances and women were expected to be faithful and loving, is hacked apart with extreme violence – not least because a woman who leaves her husband, as Maria does, soon finds that she has no legal or social ground to stand on.
By the time she wrote this, Wollstonecraft was living with William Godwin. He objected to marriage too, but they did it anyway when she got pregnant with her second child, for the sake of appearances. Much of The Wrongs of Woman takes the form of a letter written by the heroine to educate her daughter about what life is like, and Wollstonecraft must have been thinking a lot about such things as she brought up her first daughter, Fanny, who was only three when Wollstonecraft died. I found it heartbreaking to read some of these passages, knowing that Fanny would grow up to kill herself at 22 because her half-sister Mary (with whom Wollstonecraft was pregnant while writing this) had run off with Shelley. What a mess that family was.
But then, these were people struggling with some of the biggest issues of their time, and creating not a few of them. The Wrongs of Woman, though left unfinished at Wollstonecraft's death, is a worthy successor to the Rights of Woman, and makes you feel the raw frustration and fury that is the appropriate response to the inequalities she was targeting. Nowadays we're fortunate enough to be able to treat these things as intellectual or literary themes, but for her they were life and death.
Given all that, you expect to see a big development in ideas and style from one to the next – and you do. Mary is a slim philosophical fable about a woman stuck in an unhappy marriage. The set-up shows that Wollstonecraft was already concerned about the undesirability of marriage for women, though we see almost nothing of Mary's actual husband in the story, only hearing that ‘the sound of his name made her turn sick’. The focus is more on Mary's internal development, as she educates herself and struggles with her feelings for another man.
There is a lot of high-flown ‘sensibility’ in Mary, often with a rather Gothic overtone of melodrama (‘Shall I ever feel joy? Do all suffer like me?…I weep, a solitary wretch, and the hot tears scald my cheeks’, and so forth). Much of this intensity has a religious colouring, to do with looking forward to when the Lord Omnipotent will reign and wipe the tearful eye. Overall the story is not without interest for those curious about Wollstonecraft's development, but is otherwise a bit sick-making for modern tastes.
The year after Mary came out, the French Revolution happened, kick-starting Wollstonecraft's political engagement – first with the Vindication of the Rights of Men in 1790, and then more explosively with the Vindication of the Rights of Woman in 1792. At the end of that amazing book, she promised to write a follow-up detailing the legal obstacles that women faced in England. This was never actually completed in essay form, but you could certainly see The Wrongs of Woman as a fictional treatment of that subject.
So the Wrongs of Woman is to be considered as mirroring the Rights of Woman. Again, the set-up shows that it is a novel of ideas rather than of characters or events: the heroine, Maria, is exploited by a husband who marries her for her family's money, tries to pimp her out to friends, and finally has her committed to a madhouse. Along the way she meets several other women who are allowed to tell their own stories, each of them adding further examples of the way women are treated by patriarchal social and legal structures that consider women to be property.
The point is hammered home with pleasing directness. We are told of ‘the aggravated ills of life that her sex rendered almost inevitable’; she rails against ‘the institutions of society, which thus enabled men to tyrannize over women’. ‘Was not the world a vast prison, and women born slaves?’ Maria asks herself; and later, ‘Why was I not born a man, or why was I born at all?’
The religiosity of Mary, which was also a major element of the Rights of Woman (an unwelcome one in my view), is mostly absent here. I think the reason religion sits so uneasily with Wollstonecraft's writing is that it offers a kind of hope, and therefore a solution, to the social problems that animate her, by deferring their resolution to the afterlife. This gets in the way of her anger, and I much prefer her when she's righteously angry, which she definitely is throughout The Wrongs of Woman.
Above all, it is the situation of married women that is shown to be completely untenable. ‘Marriage had bastilled me for life,’ Maria says at one point (a timely phrasing for the 1790s). The pervasive double standard, by which men were expected to have their little dalliances and women were expected to be faithful and loving, is hacked apart with extreme violence – not least because a woman who leaves her husband, as Maria does, soon finds that she has no legal or social ground to stand on.
The situation of a woman separated from her husband, is undoubtedly very different from that of a man who has left his wife. He, with lordly dignity, has shaken off a clog; and the allowing her food and raiment, is thought sufficient to secure his reputation from taint. […] A woman, on the contrary, resigning what is termed her natural protector (though he never was so, but in name) is despised and shunned, for asserting the independence of mind distinctive of a rational being, and spurning at slavery.
By the time she wrote this, Wollstonecraft was living with William Godwin. He objected to marriage too, but they did it anyway when she got pregnant with her second child, for the sake of appearances. Much of The Wrongs of Woman takes the form of a letter written by the heroine to educate her daughter about what life is like, and Wollstonecraft must have been thinking a lot about such things as she brought up her first daughter, Fanny, who was only three when Wollstonecraft died. I found it heartbreaking to read some of these passages, knowing that Fanny would grow up to kill herself at 22 because her half-sister Mary (with whom Wollstonecraft was pregnant while writing this) had run off with Shelley. What a mess that family was.
But then, these were people struggling with some of the biggest issues of their time, and creating not a few of them. The Wrongs of Woman, though left unfinished at Wollstonecraft's death, is a worthy successor to the Rights of Woman, and makes you feel the raw frustration and fury that is the appropriate response to the inequalities she was targeting. Nowadays we're fortunate enough to be able to treat these things as intellectual or literary themes, but for her they were life and death.
March 25, 2024
Although lacking (especially in the first novella, written some eight years before the second) in (what I would call) the mandatory felicities of fiction*
*
I was quite taken with these two novellas, perhaps in spite of my readerly expectations, but certainly on account of the (controlled, directed, mastered, the author would have me add) sense of passion which lies behind their ex-pression—a most manifest, but transmuted, white-hot-but-supercooled righteous fury against a present, universal injustice which is in need of immediate and certain redress.
I would say that these politically-engaged fictions are like those of Dickens when he holds the Victorian mirror up to poverty, but on second thought they are more like Marx in Capital Vol 1 when he documents, for page upon page the horrors of child labor—though on third thought, I'd say that MW is the late 18th century's Ken Loach, incarnating injustice in characters you live and breathe with, whose pain you would give anything to alleviate (wishing this film would end, though also, because of its artfulness, not)...
*
I was quite taken with these two novellas, perhaps in spite of my readerly expectations, but certainly on account of the (controlled, directed, mastered, the author would have me add) sense of passion which lies behind their ex-pression—a most manifest, but transmuted, white-hot-but-supercooled righteous fury against a present, universal injustice which is in need of immediate and certain redress.
I would say that these politically-engaged fictions are like those of Dickens when he holds the Victorian mirror up to poverty, but on second thought they are more like Marx in Capital Vol 1 when he documents, for page upon page the horrors of child labor—though on third thought, I'd say that MW is the late 18th century's Ken Loach, incarnating injustice in characters you live and breathe with, whose pain you would give anything to alleviate (wishing this film would end, though also, because of its artfulness, not)...
I seldom closed my eyes without being haunted by Mr. Venables' image, who seemed to assume terrific or hateful forms to torment me, wherever I turned.—Sometimes a wild cat, a roaring bull, or hideous assassin, whom I vainly attempted to fly; at others he was a demon, hurrying me to the brink of a precipice, plunging me into dark waves, or horrid gulfs; and I woke, in violent fits of trembling anxiety, to assure myself that it was all a dream, and to endeavour to lure my waking thoughts to wander to the delightful Italian vales, I hoped soon to visit; or to picture some august ruins, where I reclined in fancy on a mouldering column, and escaped, in the contemplation of the heart-enlarging virtues of antiquity, from the turmoil of cares that had depressed all the daring purposes of my soul. But I was not long allowed to calm my mind by the exercise of my imagination...Overlaid on/permeating all that refined and directed passion is the overabundant learning acquired and put to certain use by a truly first-rate mind: so, if you will read this, do do yourself a big favour and get this Oxford Word Classics edition with its excellent introduction and notes—to chase the allusions, certainly, but more importantly to feel the sheer weight of her liberal-conviction-painstakingly-acquired and the nuances of Enlightenment thought-as-channeled-by that sensitive mind just as it is shading towards Romanticism (as words like Sensibility, Fancy, Curiosity, Sublimity, Independence, Property, &c… collide and collude to breed a possible new way of seeing, being—and, most importantly, M. Wollstonecraft would have me say acting—with and towards each other).
February 15, 2021
I had the sense that Wollstonecraft was really struggling with writer’s block for this one. After her wonderful inflammatory polemics (A Vindication of the Rights of Woman is especially brilliant) she turned to the ‘sentimental novel’ to popularize her social critiques. Sadly, it doesn’t work.
It’s important to note this is an unfinished manuscript – and it shows. Narratives are literally broken off mid-sentence and the whole thing is very disjointed, making for a hard read. Wollstonecraft can clearly tell a story with powerful rhetoric: there’s one instant where a character gives her backstory which speaks candidly of rape, abortion, and abuse. The story itself is set in a madhouse, centering around a woman who has been wrongly interned by her husband. It stars possibly the first cross-class female friendship, as well as an implied ménage à trois. But this is all undermined by abstract, stilted prose and caricature villains. It would have been more effective as a polemic.
I wonder whether this may have influenced Anne Brontë – there are many similarities with The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. That novel is an example of a layered and very human portrait that has the same motive, but is far more effective in its execution.
It’s important to note this is an unfinished manuscript – and it shows. Narratives are literally broken off mid-sentence and the whole thing is very disjointed, making for a hard read. Wollstonecraft can clearly tell a story with powerful rhetoric: there’s one instant where a character gives her backstory which speaks candidly of rape, abortion, and abuse. The story itself is set in a madhouse, centering around a woman who has been wrongly interned by her husband. It stars possibly the first cross-class female friendship, as well as an implied ménage à trois. But this is all undermined by abstract, stilted prose and caricature villains. It would have been more effective as a polemic.
I wonder whether this may have influenced Anne Brontë – there are many similarities with The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. That novel is an example of a layered and very human portrait that has the same motive, but is far more effective in its execution.
May 4, 2016
Having read Vindication I was rather excited to have found this on the shelves of my local library, particularly since I hadn't realised that she had written non-fiction works on the subject of women's rights. Each of the two stories included reflect Wollstonecraft's views that treatment of the time was far below what it should be and that this has negative influences and effects not just on the women themselves but all those around them, men and women alike. But they also show that women did and do have the power to change things for the better, however much they have to fight to do so. The first story, Mary, shows the successful side of this while the second story, Maria, shows how the opposite can be true. And yet at the end of the second you still have a sense that all may not be totally lost (at least I like to think so anyway). With both you can see Wollstonecraft's own experiences being woven into the stories and the characters adding a certain sense of realism, which in turn stirs the soul all the more.
September 4, 2019
Mary Wollstonecraft's work put a basis for feminism. Like I said in my review for A Vindication of the Rights of Womanhe's one of the first feminist philosophers and as such, she's inspiring. However, the reason why the book I just mentioned is her most well known book is quite obvious after reading this.
I found it good at some times and rather tedious at others. This book has two stories: Mary is a novel that even the author didn't consider as very good a few years after its publication. While the story itself is interesting, I found the writing tedious and it just couldn't hold my interest: 2 stars. The Wrongs of Woman is unfortunately unfinished and was published after her death, but that doesn't stop it from being an interesting sequel to her Vindication of the Rights of Woman, especially when you keep in mind that it was written and published in the 18th century and was received with much more harsh criticism at the time. I definitely recommend this one: 4 stars.
I found it good at some times and rather tedious at others. This book has two stories: Mary is a novel that even the author didn't consider as very good a few years after its publication. While the story itself is interesting, I found the writing tedious and it just couldn't hold my interest: 2 stars. The Wrongs of Woman is unfortunately unfinished and was published after her death, but that doesn't stop it from being an interesting sequel to her Vindication of the Rights of Woman, especially when you keep in mind that it was written and published in the 18th century and was received with much more harsh criticism at the time. I definitely recommend this one: 4 stars.
March 12, 2023
Once considered 'scandalous' it took an enlightened 20th c. audience to appreciate its worth.
August 30, 2016
“What virtuous woman thought of her feelings?—It was her duty to love and obey the man chosen by her parents and relations, who were qualified by their experience to judge better for her, than she could for herself.”
Important? Yes. Enjoyable? Partially, but there is a reason Mary Wollstonecraft is better known for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman than for these novels.
Mary
This felt very young (written at 18 while she was a governess), but with some sweet romantic bits.
She draws a clear line between marriage,
“I will work, she cried, do any thing rather than be a slave.”
and romantic love
“When passion first enters the heart, it is only a return of affection that is sought after, and every other remembrance and wish is blotted out.”
The Wrongs of Woman
Sadly, what we have is unfinished due to the author’s death. (I actually found myself wanting to suggest revisions, like cut the heck out of the beginning; nix the flashback and tell the story in chronological order for drama and the suspense of wondering what had happened to her.)
I enjoyed the threesome of Maria, her savior Jemima, and new love Darnford, and the latter two had some great lines:
Jemima: “I began to consider the rich and poor as natural enemies, and became a thief from principle.”
Darnford: “…till the rich will give more than a part of their wealth, till they will give time and attention to the wants of the distressed, never let them boast of charity. Let them open their hearts, and not their purses, and employ their minds in the service, if they are really actuated by humanity; or charitable institutions will always be the prey of the lowest order of knaves.”
Some of the writing is beautiful. (I mean, I didn’t realize there were so many ways to say my husband is a worthless dog!) But the intent is clearly to advocate for women’s much-needed rights.
“I wish my country to approve of my conduct; but, if laws exist, made by the strong to oppress the weak, I appeal to my own sense of justice, and declare that I will not live with the individual, who has violated every moral obligation which binds man to man.”
Want to read
February 3, 2008One of my clients gave this to me as a "going away present" because I am abandoning him. He also told me, when I said I was leaving, that he "wasn't surprised," because "most people get tired of working with the poor and want to go do something more lucrative and interesting."
When I asked him what had made me think this was a good thing to give me, he said, "because you women always want to read some kind of woman book, about WOMEN!" Then he gave me a twenty minute lecture about Mary Shelley, and all her trials and tribulations before and during the writing of Frankenstein, which is, he says arguably, the first science fiction novel.
Will I ever read this? Probably not. But I will certainly treasure it, up until the day that I die.
When I asked him what had made me think this was a good thing to give me, he said, "because you women always want to read some kind of woman book, about WOMEN!" Then he gave me a twenty minute lecture about Mary Shelley, and all her trials and tribulations before and during the writing of Frankenstein, which is, he says arguably, the first science fiction novel.
Will I ever read this? Probably not. But I will certainly treasure it, up until the day that I die.
February 28, 2024
i did like the premise behind this - very radically feminist, but ‘mary, a fiction’ was so much better!! wollstonecraft’s exploration of sensibility across her writing may be my fave thing about here
edit: okay this was much better that i originally thought, it turns out when i listen to things i get a much better experience but yes go listen to this!!! very good soop
edit: okay this was much better that i originally thought, it turns out when i listen to things i get a much better experience but yes go listen to this!!! very good soop
Read
March 9, 2025We've really been having the same conversation for hundreds of years.
February 18, 2020
I haven’t read anything by Mary Wollstonecraft before. She is famous for her the Vindication of the Rights of Women which was published in 1792. These are two of her short stories about 2 different women.
The first one Mary: A Fiction is a story about a girl who didn’t find love in her childhood and seeks to find some in the world during her later years. She searches for humanity and goodness around her but only finds it in nature. The people always disappoint her. She sees death over and over again as it snatches away people she has started to care for. This puts her faith to test. It was an okay read: started out good but dragged out a bit. 3 and a half star to this short story.
The second short story was left incomplete by the demise of the author due to complications of childbirth. It was still longer of the two short stories. I liked this second story Maria: The Wrongs of Woman better. It was more put together and the story had a direction. There were some amazing passages in the story and you feel terribly for all that the various women in the book have to suffer. They suffer quietly because there is no law there to protect them.
This edition also had a long introduction and explanatory notes which bought forward the background of the stories and the author.
The first one Mary: A Fiction is a story about a girl who didn’t find love in her childhood and seeks to find some in the world during her later years. She searches for humanity and goodness around her but only finds it in nature. The people always disappoint her. She sees death over and over again as it snatches away people she has started to care for. This puts her faith to test. It was an okay read: started out good but dragged out a bit. 3 and a half star to this short story.
The second short story was left incomplete by the demise of the author due to complications of childbirth. It was still longer of the two short stories. I liked this second story Maria: The Wrongs of Woman better. It was more put together and the story had a direction. There were some amazing passages in the story and you feel terribly for all that the various women in the book have to suffer. They suffer quietly because there is no law there to protect them.
This edition also had a long introduction and explanatory notes which bought forward the background of the stories and the author.
April 4, 2011
"Why was I not born a man, or why was I born at all?"
This quote from the end of the first volume or "Maria: or, The Wrongs of Woman" seemed a good one for summing up the book. We are introduced to the eponymous character as she finds herself in a lunatic asylum, having been thrown in there by her corrupt husband. Her story is revealed to us through the memoir she has written her daughter (who has been taken away from her and subsequently dies).
Through the telling of her own story and that of the nurse Jemima's, Wollstonecraft is highlighting the injustices suffered by women in the eighteenth century. This would have been incredibly controversial at the time as Wollstonecraft pulls no punches at exposing the glaring double standards that were considered commonplace in society at that time.
This book was an engrossing read and especially interesting for anyone with an interest in literature of that time. It is disappointing that the story was never finished and the detached sentences garnered from Wollstonecraft's writings hint at what could have been. And WHAT a novel it could have been!
This quote from the end of the first volume or "Maria: or, The Wrongs of Woman" seemed a good one for summing up the book. We are introduced to the eponymous character as she finds herself in a lunatic asylum, having been thrown in there by her corrupt husband. Her story is revealed to us through the memoir she has written her daughter (who has been taken away from her and subsequently dies).
Through the telling of her own story and that of the nurse Jemima's, Wollstonecraft is highlighting the injustices suffered by women in the eighteenth century. This would have been incredibly controversial at the time as Wollstonecraft pulls no punches at exposing the glaring double standards that were considered commonplace in society at that time.
This book was an engrossing read and especially interesting for anyone with an interest in literature of that time. It is disappointing that the story was never finished and the detached sentences garnered from Wollstonecraft's writings hint at what could have been. And WHAT a novel it could have been!
March 15, 2013
I had already read the Wrongs of Women (Which I loved and gave 5 stars to) so this review is just for the short story Mary. I thought this was a lovely tragic story about a very lonely woman adrift in her time. The problem with it though was a problem I have with a lot of 18th century English literature in that it felt very disconnected. While the author would often write about what Mary was thinking and her dreams there felt like there was a huge layer between reading the story and what was actually happening in it. I think this was partly due to the fact there was very little actual dialogue. Even for a lot of the very dramatic scenes it was as if someone was describing it to you after it had happened not like you were their witnessing it first hand with all the emotions that were happening. There were some instances where this was changed and they were usually when people were talking to each other. Of the two stories I felt this was the weakest, the style wasn't as grandiose and the stark social reality not as vivid. Still I am very glad I read it.
September 17, 2018
3 stars
I found this book enlightening and shocking in its exploration of the treatment of women in the 19th century, yet as a novel, I didn’t think it was well constructed.
The exploration of not only Maria’s troubles as a woman seeking to divorce her husband, but also Jemima’s when she is forced into prostitution and struggling to find work, was captivating. Even with my awareness of the lack of rights women had and still have, it was shocking to read how women were mistreated and denied rights in this period.
The actual construction of the novel was rather peculiar. It was fragmentary, split into flashbacks coming from different perspectives and taking a rather non-linear format. I didn’t dislike it with a passion, but I found it strange.
The beginning was also slow, and it took a while for me to settle into the writing.
Even though I did not particularly enjoy the writing or execution, the message and intention was admirable.
I found this book enlightening and shocking in its exploration of the treatment of women in the 19th century, yet as a novel, I didn’t think it was well constructed.
The exploration of not only Maria’s troubles as a woman seeking to divorce her husband, but also Jemima’s when she is forced into prostitution and struggling to find work, was captivating. Even with my awareness of the lack of rights women had and still have, it was shocking to read how women were mistreated and denied rights in this period.
The actual construction of the novel was rather peculiar. It was fragmentary, split into flashbacks coming from different perspectives and taking a rather non-linear format. I didn’t dislike it with a passion, but I found it strange.
The beginning was also slow, and it took a while for me to settle into the writing.
Even though I did not particularly enjoy the writing or execution, the message and intention was admirable.
February 28, 2015
A fascinating look at a political and philosophal thinker's fiction; also, an interesting look at Mary Wollstonecraft's authorial maturation between her early and late work. Mary: A Fiction is a little clumsy and highly reflective of the contemporary literary tradition, but valuable in comparison to ideas expressed in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. The later, unfinished novel, The Wrongs of Woman is also interesting to read as a "sequel" to Rights of Woman but also a more sophisticated work overall, incorporating gothic elements. Recommended for anyone interested in Wollstonecraft and her work, but perhaps not for a casual reader looking for a classic novel to try.
May 12, 2025
"'Consider, dear madam, I was famishing: wonder not that I became a wolf!'"
This book is comprised of two separate stories and I will give a brief review of each separately <3 and then calculate the mean in order to exhibit 1) total fact and 2) my A+ in first year Statistics from 2023
Mary, A Fiction:
This one.....Mary Wollstonecraft, (English) mother of feminism, I'm so sorry this was the rougher one of the two novellas for the book to begin with crying emoji. It's a quick read theoretically since it's not long at all...but yo... Wollstonecraft's writing style is something that I needed to get used to, but it's not the part I struggled with. I just wasn't really compelled by the story itself or the protagonist. As a novel of sensibility, I get that the female protagonist is meant to be physically and mentally fragile, susceptible to intense emotion, and selfless to a fault. I also respect how Wollstonecraft somewhat challenges these assertions by introducing the importance of female education and being generally anti-(forced)marriage. But maybe novels of sensibility just aren't my thing, because I was truly fighting to get through this.
It might also be because I was lowkey going through an existential crisis while I was reading this that I had nooooo motivation.
I am giving Mary a two. Her character made my brain numb and indifferent and that makes me sad :(
The Wrongs of Woman, or Maria:
I had been set on not reading Maria at all because, like I said, I was in a very detached headspace and did not have a good time with Mary. However, I found Maria to be a lot more engaging character-wise and writing-wise.
The biggest point of difference between the two stories is the overall tone. They are both heavily character-driven, but whereas Mary, both the story and the protagonist, feels like a wilted trampled flower, Maria is striking and jarring and more multifaceted.
Maria leans more into the psychological and philosophical; as such, the asylum setting is very fitting and sets the tone of the story well. As its alternative title suggests—The Wrongs of Woman—this novel centres the oppressive conditions and resulting flaws of being a woman in the late 1700s. And the valid critiques against the novel's imperfect female characters (especially the tragic Jemima) untimely serve as criticism of the patriarchal society that creates such unfavourable circumstances for women. From a Romantic-era standpoint, Wollstonecraft acknowledges that women are as depraved as men push them to be (and of course, depravity mostly refers to sexual promiscuity [including for survival]). There is certainly more nuance to this in the novella, but this is the basic, recurring idea. Since I can see all of what Wollstonecraft criticizes about sexism and the patriarchy (though it wouldn't have been called that) being considered radical even now in the big 2025, ohhhhhhh I can only imagine how CRAZY it was back then. I can truly feel the passion of the author.
Going back to the madhouse setting, again I am so fascinated by the comparison between imprisonment and marriage/the restrictions placed upon wives. Or, more generally speaking, the restrictions placed on women. The atmosphere of the novel is pretty strong throughout, with the themes of the novel amplifying the suffocating setting. Having only finished Godwin's Caleb Williams shortly before reading this, I was extra tuned in to the exploration of evasion and the defiance of authority.
Lastly, it's very fitting that as I write this, it is Mother's Day, because my favourite aspect of the narrative is Maria's being a mother and the fact that she is writing this story with the intent of her child (a DAUGHTER naturally) reading it and learning from it. I think knowing that this is Maria's motivation to record and discuss the darkest parts of her life adds soooo much meaning. Wollstonecraft unfortunately passed away before she was able to complete the story, but the vague outlines for the various possible endings are provided. As one can expect from the subject matter of her writing, Wollstonecraft does not shy away from telling grim stories since life for Maria especially isn't all peaches cream. BUTTT guys the ending that is most developed is much less devastating than the others and is therefore CANON TO ME. But yes, we all know I love stories about motherhood so I was very moved by Maria's words.
Since I am giving Maria a three, that means the average star rating for this book as a whole is 2.5. I was really close to officially logging this at 2, but I will round up to 3 because Wollstonecraft truly was a revolutionary. Happy Mother's Day <3
This book is comprised of two separate stories and I will give a brief review of each separately <3 and then calculate the mean in order to exhibit 1) total fact and 2) my A+ in first year Statistics from 2023
Mary, A Fiction:
This one.....Mary Wollstonecraft, (English) mother of feminism, I'm so sorry this was the rougher one of the two novellas for the book to begin with crying emoji. It's a quick read theoretically since it's not long at all...but yo... Wollstonecraft's writing style is something that I needed to get used to, but it's not the part I struggled with. I just wasn't really compelled by the story itself or the protagonist. As a novel of sensibility, I get that the female protagonist is meant to be physically and mentally fragile, susceptible to intense emotion, and selfless to a fault. I also respect how Wollstonecraft somewhat challenges these assertions by introducing the importance of female education and being generally anti-(forced)marriage. But maybe novels of sensibility just aren't my thing, because I was truly fighting to get through this.
It might also be because I was lowkey going through an existential crisis while I was reading this that I had nooooo motivation.
I am giving Mary a two. Her character made my brain numb and indifferent and that makes me sad :(
The Wrongs of Woman, or Maria:
I had been set on not reading Maria at all because, like I said, I was in a very detached headspace and did not have a good time with Mary. However, I found Maria to be a lot more engaging character-wise and writing-wise.
The biggest point of difference between the two stories is the overall tone. They are both heavily character-driven, but whereas Mary, both the story and the protagonist, feels like a wilted trampled flower, Maria is striking and jarring and more multifaceted.
Maria leans more into the psychological and philosophical; as such, the asylum setting is very fitting and sets the tone of the story well. As its alternative title suggests—The Wrongs of Woman—this novel centres the oppressive conditions and resulting flaws of being a woman in the late 1700s. And the valid critiques against the novel's imperfect female characters (especially the tragic Jemima) untimely serve as criticism of the patriarchal society that creates such unfavourable circumstances for women. From a Romantic-era standpoint, Wollstonecraft acknowledges that women are as depraved as men push them to be (and of course, depravity mostly refers to sexual promiscuity [including for survival]). There is certainly more nuance to this in the novella, but this is the basic, recurring idea. Since I can see all of what Wollstonecraft criticizes about sexism and the patriarchy (though it wouldn't have been called that) being considered radical even now in the big 2025, ohhhhhhh I can only imagine how CRAZY it was back then. I can truly feel the passion of the author.
Going back to the madhouse setting, again I am so fascinated by the comparison between imprisonment and marriage/the restrictions placed upon wives. Or, more generally speaking, the restrictions placed on women. The atmosphere of the novel is pretty strong throughout, with the themes of the novel amplifying the suffocating setting. Having only finished Godwin's Caleb Williams shortly before reading this, I was extra tuned in to the exploration of evasion and the defiance of authority.
Lastly, it's very fitting that as I write this, it is Mother's Day, because my favourite aspect of the narrative is Maria's being a mother and the fact that she is writing this story with the intent of her child (a DAUGHTER naturally) reading it and learning from it. I think knowing that this is Maria's motivation to record and discuss the darkest parts of her life adds soooo much meaning. Wollstonecraft unfortunately passed away before she was able to complete the story, but the vague outlines for the various possible endings are provided. As one can expect from the subject matter of her writing, Wollstonecraft does not shy away from telling grim stories since life for Maria especially isn't all peaches cream. BUTTT guys the ending that is most developed is much less devastating than the others and is therefore CANON TO ME. But yes, we all know I love stories about motherhood so I was very moved by Maria's words.
Since I am giving Maria a three, that means the average star rating for this book as a whole is 2.5. I was really close to officially logging this at 2, but I will round up to 3 because Wollstonecraft truly was a revolutionary. Happy Mother's Day <3
May 13, 2021
Mary and The Wrongs of Woman are two short stories, with the latter being unfinished. They both revolve around the rights of women during the 18th century and how biased the world is against them.
The first story Mary is quite simple and details Mary's woes. She is forced into marriage and has to deal with a large amount of grief and uncertainty. Mary explores many topics but at times is boring and drags.
However, once you start reading The Wrongs of Woman (which was written around 10 years after Mary) you realise the improvement in Wollstonecraft's writing. The plot lines are more thought out and the commentary on society is much better intertwined into the storyline. It is such a shame it was never finished and the fact we didn't get to see Wollstonecraft's writing improve further due to her early death.
Overall, two interesting short stories from the late 18th century. I am intrigued now to read Wollstonecraft's famous Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792).
The first story Mary is quite simple and details Mary's woes. She is forced into marriage and has to deal with a large amount of grief and uncertainty. Mary explores many topics but at times is boring and drags.
However, once you start reading The Wrongs of Woman (which was written around 10 years after Mary) you realise the improvement in Wollstonecraft's writing. The plot lines are more thought out and the commentary on society is much better intertwined into the storyline. It is such a shame it was never finished and the fact we didn't get to see Wollstonecraft's writing improve further due to her early death.
Overall, two interesting short stories from the late 18th century. I am intrigued now to read Wollstonecraft's famous Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792).
January 23, 2009
Sweet, propaganda in novel form and one of the earliest feminist books around. The sad life of the title character gives Woolstonecraft a chance to visit the ills and repression women faced in society in the 1800s and I love the polemics. A lot of people ignorantly state that good novels shouldn't have political agendas, but fail to see that not having a point of view is also taking a side. I would like to see more writers doing what Wollstonecraft did so long ago and start writing social protest novels again--make your stories about something you believe in instead of books where characters seem to exist in a vacuum--there's no Iraq war,poverty, etc. Paretsky does this and I think mystery or genre writers can get away with it easier than novels of literat-toor.
December 28, 2023
we’ve come so far!! (we have literally gotten no where how are things the exact same if not worse I am so angry right now)
December 16, 2025
re: The Wrongs of Woman
“The magnitude of a sacrifice ought always to bear some proportion to the utility in view; and for a woman to live with a man, for whom she can cherish neither affection nor esteem, or even be of any use to him, excepting in the light of a house-keeper, is an abjectness of condition, the enduring of which no concurrence of circumstances can ever make a duty in the sight of God or just men.”
“Men who are inferior to their fellow men, are always most anxious to establish their superiority over women.”
spoiler alert: men suck today just as much and in all the same ways as they sucked 200+ years ago
read as a contemporary to Jane Austen and an evident and relevant influence in Austen’s work, it’s less of a novel than it is a radical feminist assessment on the perverse nature of the marriage institution at the time and a system of patriarchy that consistently punishes women for aspiring to any sort of freedom from their ideological and physical enslavement to men, it’s undoubtedly an important feminist text and amazing for its stubbornness in achieving publication despite being fairly incomplete
(misandry origin story?)
“The magnitude of a sacrifice ought always to bear some proportion to the utility in view; and for a woman to live with a man, for whom she can cherish neither affection nor esteem, or even be of any use to him, excepting in the light of a house-keeper, is an abjectness of condition, the enduring of which no concurrence of circumstances can ever make a duty in the sight of God or just men.”
“Men who are inferior to their fellow men, are always most anxious to establish their superiority over women.”
spoiler alert: men suck today just as much and in all the same ways as they sucked 200+ years ago
read as a contemporary to Jane Austen and an evident and relevant influence in Austen’s work, it’s less of a novel than it is a radical feminist assessment on the perverse nature of the marriage institution at the time and a system of patriarchy that consistently punishes women for aspiring to any sort of freedom from their ideological and physical enslavement to men, it’s undoubtedly an important feminist text and amazing for its stubbornness in achieving publication despite being fairly incomplete
(misandry origin story?)
January 8, 2022
Mary Wollstonecraft is renowned for her contribution to promoting the rights of women, but not as well known for her works of fiction, and for good reason.
For two good reasons, in fact. Firstly both of the works in this collection were left unfinished. Mary has a beginning, middle and end, but seems short, and ends abruptly. The Wrongs of Women was left unfinished at the time of Wollstonecraft’s death.
The second reason is that Wollstonecraft was not an especially great writer. Both books are only of note because the writer was an interesting person, and the views expressed were ahead of their time.
One criticism often levelled at works with pretentions to art is that they are style over substance. Certainly a book can be just a box of tricks and quirks with no real intention beyond impressing a panel who gives out literary awards, as can be seen with most Booker Prize winners.
However style is ultimately more important than content in the world of art, and a book that is all content and no style is usually worthy, but dull. Ideally the two elements should marry but with style as the dominant partner.
Mary is the weaker work here. Both books are clearly autobiographical, as betrayed by the name of the heroines – Mary or Maria. The theme of both books is the plight of women in 18th century Britain.
In this first book, Mary is neglected by her family and dedicates herself to charitable work. After her brother’s death, Mary becomes heir to the money, and is forced to marry a man she has never met. He spends most of the book abroad and away from her, suggesting he has not much enthusiasm for the marriage either.
What Mary does have enthusiasm for is her friend, Ann, a consumptive woman living in poverty. Ill health is a motif in the book, and characters are always dying after a long period of sickness. After Ann’s death, Mary falls in love with another man, Henry, but he too is ailing, and after Mary’s husband returns and she is forced to live with him, Mary suggests she will die soon too.
As can be seen, the book is a dreary one in which Wollstonecraft piles the misery high. Wollstonecraft is also something of a cross hanger, and there are long tiresome passages praising the god who has done nothing to make Mary’s life any better.
Still Mary does provide an insight into the position of women. It is Mary’s fate to adopt male traits – intelligence, reading, strength of character, and attraction to women. However she can only ever be stifled by her life because her fate is decided by men.
That is the theme too of The Wrongs of Women. This is an improvement on Mary. Wollstonecraft seems to have shed her cloying piety, and this allows a more straightforward narrative. Nonetheless it is still a depressing affair in which the brief moments of light in Maria’s life hardly compensate for all the suffering.
In a metaphor for the plight of women, we open in an insane asylum where Maria is imprisoned so that her husband can get his hands on her money. Still isn’t this the fate of all women? In marriage, the husband has the upper hand. His infidelities and dissipation are allowed. He keeps possession of the house and goods if she walks out. He can abuse her. He can pursue her using the law if she runs away from him. He can have her committed.
Maria seeks to win the trust of her attendant, Jemima, a woman who has also been mistreated by men. After being raped, Jemima was turned out of a job as a maid, and forced to become a prostitute. This brought her more freedom but at the cost of morality and respectability. Working in the asylum gives her a first chance at getting on her feet again.
However Jemima is compassionate for the fate of Maria, who tells the attendant her story. This is in the form of a narrative that will be passed on to her baby daughter. By the time the narrative begins, we have learned that the daughter has died, which will probably spare her the suffering that the other two women experienced.
Maria was at the mercy of a despotic father and brother, and then married a selfish and feckless husband. However the marriage laws are stacked in her husband’s favour. Wollstonecraft often stops the story in its tracks to provide a polemic against the state of affairs that reduces women to the status of prisoners and slaves. These are the best passages in the book.
Eventually Maria’s husband has her committed after she runs away. While in the asylum, a romance develops between her and another inmate, Darnford, a late addition to the story drafts. With his and Jemima’s help, Maria escapes, but the book ends with them being pursued in the courts.
A draft for the remaining part of the book was drawn up suggesting that plenty more misfortunes were coming Maria’s way, and the story would either end in suicide, or with Maria agreeing to live for another child that she has had in the meantime.
It is refreshing to see a book by a woman in this period that is not an absurd romance. The action of The Wrongs of Women is grounded in real issues. It makes important points about a system dominated by men and the upper classes, and the plight of women who wish to follow their own feelings, rather than adhere to a duty imposed on them for no purpose but to secure their obedience.
As with Mary, however, the book is more interesting for its ideas and for the light it sheds on its fascinating author. The cloying sentimental style and constant attempts to tug at the heartstrings tend to make The Wrongs of Women hard-going at times. It is a brave attempt at establishing a true work of ‘women’s literature’ though, and well worth a look.
For two good reasons, in fact. Firstly both of the works in this collection were left unfinished. Mary has a beginning, middle and end, but seems short, and ends abruptly. The Wrongs of Women was left unfinished at the time of Wollstonecraft’s death.
The second reason is that Wollstonecraft was not an especially great writer. Both books are only of note because the writer was an interesting person, and the views expressed were ahead of their time.
One criticism often levelled at works with pretentions to art is that they are style over substance. Certainly a book can be just a box of tricks and quirks with no real intention beyond impressing a panel who gives out literary awards, as can be seen with most Booker Prize winners.
However style is ultimately more important than content in the world of art, and a book that is all content and no style is usually worthy, but dull. Ideally the two elements should marry but with style as the dominant partner.
Mary is the weaker work here. Both books are clearly autobiographical, as betrayed by the name of the heroines – Mary or Maria. The theme of both books is the plight of women in 18th century Britain.
In this first book, Mary is neglected by her family and dedicates herself to charitable work. After her brother’s death, Mary becomes heir to the money, and is forced to marry a man she has never met. He spends most of the book abroad and away from her, suggesting he has not much enthusiasm for the marriage either.
What Mary does have enthusiasm for is her friend, Ann, a consumptive woman living in poverty. Ill health is a motif in the book, and characters are always dying after a long period of sickness. After Ann’s death, Mary falls in love with another man, Henry, but he too is ailing, and after Mary’s husband returns and she is forced to live with him, Mary suggests she will die soon too.
As can be seen, the book is a dreary one in which Wollstonecraft piles the misery high. Wollstonecraft is also something of a cross hanger, and there are long tiresome passages praising the god who has done nothing to make Mary’s life any better.
Still Mary does provide an insight into the position of women. It is Mary’s fate to adopt male traits – intelligence, reading, strength of character, and attraction to women. However she can only ever be stifled by her life because her fate is decided by men.
That is the theme too of The Wrongs of Women. This is an improvement on Mary. Wollstonecraft seems to have shed her cloying piety, and this allows a more straightforward narrative. Nonetheless it is still a depressing affair in which the brief moments of light in Maria’s life hardly compensate for all the suffering.
In a metaphor for the plight of women, we open in an insane asylum where Maria is imprisoned so that her husband can get his hands on her money. Still isn’t this the fate of all women? In marriage, the husband has the upper hand. His infidelities and dissipation are allowed. He keeps possession of the house and goods if she walks out. He can abuse her. He can pursue her using the law if she runs away from him. He can have her committed.
Maria seeks to win the trust of her attendant, Jemima, a woman who has also been mistreated by men. After being raped, Jemima was turned out of a job as a maid, and forced to become a prostitute. This brought her more freedom but at the cost of morality and respectability. Working in the asylum gives her a first chance at getting on her feet again.
However Jemima is compassionate for the fate of Maria, who tells the attendant her story. This is in the form of a narrative that will be passed on to her baby daughter. By the time the narrative begins, we have learned that the daughter has died, which will probably spare her the suffering that the other two women experienced.
Maria was at the mercy of a despotic father and brother, and then married a selfish and feckless husband. However the marriage laws are stacked in her husband’s favour. Wollstonecraft often stops the story in its tracks to provide a polemic against the state of affairs that reduces women to the status of prisoners and slaves. These are the best passages in the book.
Eventually Maria’s husband has her committed after she runs away. While in the asylum, a romance develops between her and another inmate, Darnford, a late addition to the story drafts. With his and Jemima’s help, Maria escapes, but the book ends with them being pursued in the courts.
A draft for the remaining part of the book was drawn up suggesting that plenty more misfortunes were coming Maria’s way, and the story would either end in suicide, or with Maria agreeing to live for another child that she has had in the meantime.
It is refreshing to see a book by a woman in this period that is not an absurd romance. The action of The Wrongs of Women is grounded in real issues. It makes important points about a system dominated by men and the upper classes, and the plight of women who wish to follow their own feelings, rather than adhere to a duty imposed on them for no purpose but to secure their obedience.
As with Mary, however, the book is more interesting for its ideas and for the light it sheds on its fascinating author. The cloying sentimental style and constant attempts to tug at the heartstrings tend to make The Wrongs of Women hard-going at times. It is a brave attempt at establishing a true work of ‘women’s literature’ though, and well worth a look.
January 14, 2023
I support women’s rights but more importantly women’s wrongs (…get it?…because of the title:D)
Feminist masterpiece. I wish Wollstonecraft had been able to finish her novel.
Gut-wrenching story about a woman wronged by society. I love her critique against the patriarchal institution of marriage in the eighteenth-century.
(It’s not that radical just because Wikipedia says so btw)
Would absolutely recommend this book if you want to feel as if you had been slapped in the face.
Some good quotes:
“In short, I fancied myself in love--in love with the disinterestedness, fortitude, generosity, dignity, and humanity, with which I had invested the hero I dubbed.”
“By allowing women but one way of rising in the world, the fostering the libertinism of men, society makes monsters of them, and then their ignoble vices are brought forward as a proof of inferiority of intellect.”
“For what am I reserved? Why was I not born a man, or why was I born at all?"”
“ 'Hearts like our's were pair'd-not match' d.' “
“but as a victim to the prejudices of mankind, who have made women the property of their husbands?”
“It is not easy to be pleased, because, after promising to love, in different circumstances, we are told that it is our duty.”
and many,many more
Feminist masterpiece. I wish Wollstonecraft had been able to finish her novel.
Gut-wrenching story about a woman wronged by society. I love her critique against the patriarchal institution of marriage in the eighteenth-century.
(It’s not that radical just because Wikipedia says so btw)
Would absolutely recommend this book if you want to feel as if you had been slapped in the face.
Some good quotes:
“In short, I fancied myself in love--in love with the disinterestedness, fortitude, generosity, dignity, and humanity, with which I had invested the hero I dubbed.”
“By allowing women but one way of rising in the world, the fostering the libertinism of men, society makes monsters of them, and then their ignoble vices are brought forward as a proof of inferiority of intellect.”
“For what am I reserved? Why was I not born a man, or why was I born at all?"”
“ 'Hearts like our's were pair'd-not match' d.' “
“but as a victim to the prejudices of mankind, who have made women the property of their husbands?”
“It is not easy to be pleased, because, after promising to love, in different circumstances, we are told that it is our duty.”
and many,many more
October 30, 2008
The first story is Mary: A Fiction and it is about the life of a girl who wishes for someone to love her or show her some kind of affection. It's a depressing story but great nonetheless.
The second story is a fragment due to Mary Wollstonecraft's untimely death. It is Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman and boy, is it ever the wrongs of women done by both men and women. It is the story of a woman named Maria who gets thrown into an insane asylum by her libertine husband who is just interested in her inheritance. Quite sad. Along the way she meets many women who have been wronged by the men in their lives (husbands and fathers) and who have to deal with their selfishness since that was what women did in the 1700's.
The second story is a fragment due to Mary Wollstonecraft's untimely death. It is Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman and boy, is it ever the wrongs of women done by both men and women. It is the story of a woman named Maria who gets thrown into an insane asylum by her libertine husband who is just interested in her inheritance. Quite sad. Along the way she meets many women who have been wronged by the men in their lives (husbands and fathers) and who have to deal with their selfishness since that was what women did in the 1700's.
December 12, 2021
"Why was I not born a man, or why was I born at all?"
As much as I love Mary Wollstonecraft as a person, and as much as I revere A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, I really did not enjoy studying her fiction. Both of the texts in this collection essentially ran the same: same plot, same themes, same despair on the part of all womankind. They were both a bit melodramatic and a little too lamenting for my tastes. For modern feminism's sake, I wish I could be more sympathetic, but I unfortunately didn't find much to enjoy here.
December 30, 2008
As an early feminist writer, I thought Wollstencraft was rather clever framing her feminist viewpoints within a "gothic" story. If the assertions that gothic novels were mainly women's reading in that time period is true, then she did a good thing by making sure women would read the important things she had to say about their treatment in the story. It's a little rough going at first, but once you begin reading beneath the surface and understand the background to it, it is easier to digest. Wollstencraft is awesome ...
June 14, 2007
"The Wrongs of Woman" is not a good novel. But it's an amazing novel in many ways. It's Wollstonecraft's attempt to incorporate the ideas from the "Vindication" into novel form. The prose are histrionic and overzealous, though I think that is probably intentional for the sake of irony. The novel itself is incomplete, but includes outlines for the remainder, some of which seem to conflict. Overall an extremely fun, and short read.
April 1, 2008
Very worth it the read. The Wrongs of Woman is immensely better than Mary. Her writing seems undeveloped and sentimental in Mary. She seems better developed, more thought-out, and much more focused on broad issues not personal issues.
March 5, 2012
This is a very important, protofeminist novel that acts as a fictional extension of Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Wollstonecraft exposes the social and legal institutions that prevented women from agency in the Romantic period.
July 30, 2008
I loved this book. It is semi-autobiographical. Wollstonecraft is progressive even by today's standards. I am intrigued by a mother's legacy and would like to research it further.
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