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Letters Written in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark
This engaging volume was pioneering feminist Mary Wollstonecraft's most popular book during her lifetime. Difficult to categorize, it is both an arresting travel book and a moving exploration of her personal and political selves. Wollstonecraft set out for Scandinavia just two weeks after her first suicide attempt, on a mission from the lover whose affections she doubted, to recover his silver on a ship that had gone missing. With her baby daughter and a nursemaid, she traveled across the dramatic landscape and wrote sublime descriptions of the natural world, and the events and people she encountered. Fascinating appendices include Imlay's commission to recover his lost silver, Wollstonecraft's recently discovered letter to the Danish Prime Minister asking for assistance, the private letters she wrote to Imlay during her travels in Scandinavia, a chapter from Godwin's memoir of Wollstonecraft, and a selection of contemporary reviews.
About the For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
About the For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
195 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1795
106 people are currently reading
1928 people want to read
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 130 reviews
June 18, 2016
"It is so delightful to love our fellow-creatures, and meet the honest affections as they break forth. Still, my good friend, I begin to think that I should not like to live continually in the country with people whose minds have such a narrow range." (p.15)
"...I feel more than a mother's fondness and anxiety when I reflect on the dependent and oppressed state of her sex. I dread lest she should be forced to sacrifice her heart to her principles, or principles to her heart." (p.24)
"Marguerite and the child often fell asleep, and when they were awake I might still reckon myself alone, as our train of thoughts had nothing in common." (p.86)
Happiness is an 18th-century Scandinavian tour in June 2016. Thanks for hopping on!
"...I feel more than a mother's fondness and anxiety when I reflect on the dependent and oppressed state of her sex. I dread lest she should be forced to sacrifice her heart to her principles, or principles to her heart." (p.24)
"Marguerite and the child often fell asleep, and when they were awake I might still reckon myself alone, as our train of thoughts had nothing in common." (p.86)
Happiness is an 18th-century Scandinavian tour in June 2016. Thanks for hopping on!
May 5, 2019
A series of 25 letters sent by proto-feminist Mary Wollstonecraft to her ex-lover Gilbert Imlay, describing a visit to Scandinavia in 1797. (The last few letters are written from north-west Germany). Wollstonecraft made this journey to represent Imlay in a dispute he had with business contacts, presumably in the hope of winning back his affections. She travelled with her maidservant and with her baby daughter Fanny Imlay.
This collection contains only the letters sent by Wollstonecraft to Imlay, but they were originally one side of a two-way correspondence. The Introduction explains that the letters Wollstonecraft received from Imlay were cold in tone. The gradual realisation that she was not to be reconciled with Imlay may have led to what I feel was a more negative tone as the letters go on. The journey had the rough order of Sweden-Norway-Sweden-Denmark-Germany and Wollstonecraft seems to be more critical about the last two destinations. Sheer tiredness may also have been a factor, since travel was a lot more demanding in those days.
I read first-hand accounts from the past largely for the insights they provide into what society was really like, and there was just about enough of that to keep me interested. Of the three countries Norway was the one that impressed Wollstonecraft the most. At the time it was subject to the King of Denmark but seems to have had considerable local autonomy, and perhaps surprisingly Wollstonecraft comments that “the Norwegians appear to me to be the most free community I have ever observed.” In contrast the Swedish peasantry live in dire poverty. “They are not termed slaves, yet a man may strike a man with impunity because he pays him wages.” Wollstonecraft adds that “Still the men stand up for the dignity of man by oppressing the women.” She also mentions at several points how the laws of the Scandinavian countries were much less punitive than in other nations, “…the laws here are mild, and do not punish capitally for any crime but murder, which seldom occurs.” The lack of a punitive approach to crime is something that is still generally true of Scandinavia today.
Wollstonecraft does tend to rhapsodise about the beauty of the landscape, especially in Norway. I think it was understandable that she did so, but these sections of the letters are less interesting to the modern reader. Also, even though as a thinker she was well ahead of her time, she inevitably retains some of the attitudes of her era.
There’s one touching sequence where Wollstonecraft ponders on mortality and comments:
“I cannot bear to think of being no more – of losing myself – though existence is often but a painful consciousness of misery; nay, it appears to me impossible that I should cease to exist, or that this active, restless, spirit, equally alive to joy and sorrow, should only be organised dust.”
Sadly, she died of suspected septicaemia at the age of 38, 11 days after the birth of her daughter Mary Godwin, who as Mary Shelley went on to surpass her mother in literary fame. Unlike most people of her era though, Mary Wollstonecraft is at least remembered.
This collection contains only the letters sent by Wollstonecraft to Imlay, but they were originally one side of a two-way correspondence. The Introduction explains that the letters Wollstonecraft received from Imlay were cold in tone. The gradual realisation that she was not to be reconciled with Imlay may have led to what I feel was a more negative tone as the letters go on. The journey had the rough order of Sweden-Norway-Sweden-Denmark-Germany and Wollstonecraft seems to be more critical about the last two destinations. Sheer tiredness may also have been a factor, since travel was a lot more demanding in those days.
I read first-hand accounts from the past largely for the insights they provide into what society was really like, and there was just about enough of that to keep me interested. Of the three countries Norway was the one that impressed Wollstonecraft the most. At the time it was subject to the King of Denmark but seems to have had considerable local autonomy, and perhaps surprisingly Wollstonecraft comments that “the Norwegians appear to me to be the most free community I have ever observed.” In contrast the Swedish peasantry live in dire poverty. “They are not termed slaves, yet a man may strike a man with impunity because he pays him wages.” Wollstonecraft adds that “Still the men stand up for the dignity of man by oppressing the women.” She also mentions at several points how the laws of the Scandinavian countries were much less punitive than in other nations, “…the laws here are mild, and do not punish capitally for any crime but murder, which seldom occurs.” The lack of a punitive approach to crime is something that is still generally true of Scandinavia today.
Wollstonecraft does tend to rhapsodise about the beauty of the landscape, especially in Norway. I think it was understandable that she did so, but these sections of the letters are less interesting to the modern reader. Also, even though as a thinker she was well ahead of her time, she inevitably retains some of the attitudes of her era.
There’s one touching sequence where Wollstonecraft ponders on mortality and comments:
“I cannot bear to think of being no more – of losing myself – though existence is often but a painful consciousness of misery; nay, it appears to me impossible that I should cease to exist, or that this active, restless, spirit, equally alive to joy and sorrow, should only be organised dust.”
Sadly, she died of suspected septicaemia at the age of 38, 11 days after the birth of her daughter Mary Godwin, who as Mary Shelley went on to surpass her mother in literary fame. Unlike most people of her era though, Mary Wollstonecraft is at least remembered.
September 23, 2021
This was the book Percy Shelley read to Mary Shelley when they were travelling together through France, introducing her to the mother she never knew. Another generation, and still waiting for Europe to be saved by radical revolution. But it was the obvious choice, as this was probably the Mary Wollstonecraft book that had the most enthusiastic reception at the time, and it's easy to see why: it has a nice mixture of travel observations, political theorising, personal reflection and social comment.
Mary Wollstonecraft had gone to Scandinavia on business, travelling as the representative of her ‘husband’ Gilbert Imlay (though they weren't actually married). She'd already made one suicide attempt over his treatment of her, and the trip was perhaps in part an attempt to prove her devotion to him, but she was confident she could get a good book out of it too.
None of this background is really spelled out here, though there are constant intriguing hints of some tragic personal backstory, to mirror the tragic political backstory. She talks about leaving behind ‘the horrors I had witnessed in France’ as well as ‘the tears of disappointed affection’, and although she does't explain who her affection was for, or how it was disappointed, the implications are fairly clear from the fact that she is travelling alone with a thirteen-month-old child. It gives a subjective, even romantic tinge to all her reflections on the landscape.
Her political convictions colour her opinions on the places she visits in ways that are often quite funny. While she considers Danes and Norwegians to be ‘the least oppressed people of Europe’, Sweden she sees as still in thrall to despotism and aristocracy, and its inhabitants, when they aren't drenching the fields in ‘the putrefying herrings, which they use as manure’,
I was lucky enough to be in Sweden when I read this, and I happily quoted this description to everyone around me – though of course many of them were too busy rooting in the clods to make more than a grunt in response.
As might be expected, Wollstonecraft is very sensitive to the gender inequities of wherever she goes, judging gloomily that, in general, ‘the men stand up for the dignity of man, by oppressing the women’. It doesn't bode well for her little daughter Fanny:
And it seems that she's already becoming aware that people associate her with this kind of thing.
Still, this is a different side of Mary Wollstonecraft, where the eloquent anger is tempered by a sense of real sadness, and where in consequence her line in outraged polemic is interspersed with experiments in controlled sensibility and pure description. As ever, she is a riveting mix of incisiveness, personal foibles, soapboxing and sick burns, held together here by concern for her baby daughter. Knowing what subsequently became of Fanny Imlay makes everything a hundred times sadder.
Mary Wollstonecraft had gone to Scandinavia on business, travelling as the representative of her ‘husband’ Gilbert Imlay (though they weren't actually married). She'd already made one suicide attempt over his treatment of her, and the trip was perhaps in part an attempt to prove her devotion to him, but she was confident she could get a good book out of it too.
None of this background is really spelled out here, though there are constant intriguing hints of some tragic personal backstory, to mirror the tragic political backstory. She talks about leaving behind ‘the horrors I had witnessed in France’ as well as ‘the tears of disappointed affection’, and although she does't explain who her affection was for, or how it was disappointed, the implications are fairly clear from the fact that she is travelling alone with a thirteen-month-old child. It gives a subjective, even romantic tinge to all her reflections on the landscape.
Her political convictions colour her opinions on the places she visits in ways that are often quite funny. While she considers Danes and Norwegians to be ‘the least oppressed people of Europe’, Sweden she sees as still in thrall to despotism and aristocracy, and its inhabitants, when they aren't drenching the fields in ‘the putrefying herrings, which they use as manure’,
contentedly remain rooted in the clods they so indolently cultivate.
I was lucky enough to be in Sweden when I read this, and I happily quoted this description to everyone around me – though of course many of them were too busy rooting in the clods to make more than a grunt in response.
As might be expected, Wollstonecraft is very sensitive to the gender inequities of wherever she goes, judging gloomily that, in general, ‘the men stand up for the dignity of man, by oppressing the women’. It doesn't bode well for her little daughter Fanny:
I feel more than a mother's fondness and anxiety, when I reflect on the dependent and oppressed state of her sex…. I dread to unfold her mind, lest it should render her unfit for the world she is to inhabit—Hapless woman! what a fate is thine!
And it seems that she's already becoming aware that people associate her with this kind of thing.
Still harping on the same subject, you will exclaim—How can I avoid it, when most of the struggles of an eventful life have been occasioned by the oppressed state of my sex: we reason deeply, when we forcibly feel.
Still, this is a different side of Mary Wollstonecraft, where the eloquent anger is tempered by a sense of real sadness, and where in consequence her line in outraged polemic is interspersed with experiments in controlled sensibility and pure description. As ever, she is a riveting mix of incisiveness, personal foibles, soapboxing and sick burns, held together here by concern for her baby daughter. Knowing what subsequently became of Fanny Imlay makes everything a hundred times sadder.
August 18, 2025
Letters on Sweden, Norway and Denmark accounts Mary Wollstonecraft's travels on Scandinavia. This was a journey taken on behalf of her lover, Gilbert Imlay with whom she had a daughter. Mary takes her infant and journeys through both rough and smooth terrain and by sea as Imlay's agent to negotiate compensation for the loss of cargo of French silver. The relationship between Mary and Imlay was stained at the time and she agreed to act as an agent on his behalf thinking that she'd be restored to his favour. In this she was highly mistaken, for once she sails to England after her journey to Scandinavia, she finds that Imlay has found another lover. This gives rise to a reasonable doubt whether Imlay sent Mary on a fool's errand purposefully to end their relationship. No matter, these letters, which are addressed to Imlay, are tinged with sadness.
Leaving personal tidbits aside, the twenty-five letters here provide an informative description of the customs culture, habits, and way of living of citizens of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. They also paint a picturesque vista of the landscape of the three countries. It was enjoyable to read of an era before the dictates of modernisation. The journey is not smooth sailing. Some travels are adventurous and Mary faces minor mishaps and inconveniences. Yet she enjoyed her travel as much as her burdened heart allowed her.
In addition to the descriptions furnished, the letters also contain Mary's observations and musings. Mary Wollstonecraft was a philosopher and a progressive thinker. Her ideas on how to improve self and society have subtly found their way to these letters. And honestly, I enjoyed them more than her travel descriptions. Mary Wollstonecraft was a woman ahead of her time.
This travel narrative and the autobiographical account nonetheless are charged with melancholy. Certain outbursts of her despair at her failing relationship touched me deeply. It grieved me to see a fine mind like hers in such severe distress. Sorrow and suffering seem to be the allotted lot for unorthodox women.
More of my reviews can be found at http://piyangiejay.com/
Leaving personal tidbits aside, the twenty-five letters here provide an informative description of the customs culture, habits, and way of living of citizens of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. They also paint a picturesque vista of the landscape of the three countries. It was enjoyable to read of an era before the dictates of modernisation. The journey is not smooth sailing. Some travels are adventurous and Mary faces minor mishaps and inconveniences. Yet she enjoyed her travel as much as her burdened heart allowed her.
In addition to the descriptions furnished, the letters also contain Mary's observations and musings. Mary Wollstonecraft was a philosopher and a progressive thinker. Her ideas on how to improve self and society have subtly found their way to these letters. And honestly, I enjoyed them more than her travel descriptions. Mary Wollstonecraft was a woman ahead of her time.
This travel narrative and the autobiographical account nonetheless are charged with melancholy. Certain outbursts of her despair at her failing relationship touched me deeply. It grieved me to see a fine mind like hers in such severe distress. Sorrow and suffering seem to be the allotted lot for unorthodox women.
More of my reviews can be found at http://piyangiejay.com/
December 6, 2020
The art of travel is only a branch of the art of thinking.
Mary Wollstonecraft 1790
A hybrid of letters, travel writing, and commentary on society, political organization, women's rights, nature, and more, this was Wollstonecraft's most popular work during her own lifetime, and provided her with much-needed income during a time she was struggling with the challenges of being a single mother in late eighteenth-century England.
It is worth spending some time learning more about Wollstonecraft's life and her circumstances at the time of her journey to Scandinavia and Germany for the greater appreciation it provides of the riches to be found in this interesting work of an important protofeminist.
The free Librivox audiobook I listened to was a collaborative reading and I found the disparate voices, of varying quality and a wide range of accents and tones, to be off-putting and difficult to engage with. I will avoid collaborative readings in the future.
Mary Wollstonecraft 1790
A hybrid of letters, travel writing, and commentary on society, political organization, women's rights, nature, and more, this was Wollstonecraft's most popular work during her own lifetime, and provided her with much-needed income during a time she was struggling with the challenges of being a single mother in late eighteenth-century England.
It is worth spending some time learning more about Wollstonecraft's life and her circumstances at the time of her journey to Scandinavia and Germany for the greater appreciation it provides of the riches to be found in this interesting work of an important protofeminist.
The free Librivox audiobook I listened to was a collaborative reading and I found the disparate voices, of varying quality and a wide range of accents and tones, to be off-putting and difficult to engage with. I will avoid collaborative readings in the future.
January 27, 2015
I read this one based on a friend's review of another edition. It is not my normal reading fare and I was quite pleased with what I found in these pages.
It was obvious from the start that Wollstonecraft was a very strong and determined woman, independent and intelligent to the max. The book is based on letters she wrote to her lover/common-law husband whose business interests she was pursuing during her travels in the Scandinavian countries. I doubt that she intended that they be published.
This trip occurred during the late eighteenth century, and certainly was no easy accomplishment. In the days before railways travellers travelled by carriage over rough roads. Teams had to be changed along the way and the traveller often had to depend on the hospitality of households along the way for meals and overnight accommodations. Additionally, a lot of the route was traversed by ship and rowboat. It was a long and slow journey, and Mary had lots of time to marvel at the countryside through which she passed. She was no shrinking violet when it came to dishing out her opinions, and she had plenty of them!
In fact, at times her remarks go right past what would be considered fair commentary and carry on to what could only be termed bitching. Bitching about the teeth of the hosts, the softness of the beds, the way they overdressed kids, smoking, drinking, the length of the meals, and so on and etcetera until it came as no surprise to me that Imlay had already replaced her as his paramour. To be fair, the letters were a private communication and quite possibly she had no idea they would see anyone's eyes but Imlay's.
What impressed me the most about our girl Mary is that she had an active mind and interests that covered all the points of the intellectual compass. She comments on morality, capital punishment, agriculture, the future of mankind...a finger in every intellectual and philosophical pie, so to speak. More importantly, many of her observations, made hundreds of years ago, still hold true today. Here's a sampling of quotes to show that her mind was not constrained to a single line of thought:
Health and idleness will always account for promiscuous amours, and in some degree I term every person idle, the exercise of whose mind does not bear some proportion to that of the body (P.35) (Are you fellows down at the gym paying attention to this?)
But few people have sufficient taste to discern, that the that the art of embellishing, consists in interesting, not astonishing (P.124)(Regarding landscaping)
I have always been of opinion that the allowing actors to die, in the presence of the audience, has an immoral tendency; but trifling when compared with the ferocity acquired by viewing the reality as a show; for it seems to me, that in all countries the common people go to executions to see how the poor wretch plays his part, rather than to commiserate his fate, much less to think of the breach of morality which has brought him to such a deplorable end. (P.155) (No question about where she would stand on modern TV programmes and violent video games.)
All commas in the quotes above are Ms Wollstonecraft's. Mary loved commas and I believe she applied them to the page with a shotgun. I have to say that I expected to have to fight my way through this book but I enjoyed it immensely. I will be hunting down more of her work in the future. In spite of her kvetching and superior airs, a fascinating woman!
May 13, 2017
I have a tricky relationship with Mary Wollstonecraft. Although I have great admiration for her work and ideas, I don't actually like reading her books. I've read fiction, non-fiction and now this collection of letters. This was my favourite so far, as I felt we got a small glimpse of her private life and convictions, in-between a lot of recounting of Scandinavian life and landscapes. At times it was quite sad, considering who she was writing to and why she was abroad in the first place, but these personal insights, along with her astute appraisal of other lands, made it an interesting and informative read.
May 14, 2017
3.5 stars
This was interesting to me
A/ because of whom it was written by
B/ because I was reading it relating to a group theme.
It was interesting reading about life and travel more than 200 years ago. Wollstonecraft had an astute eye for detail. There are many digressions in the book, some of more interest than others.
This was interesting to me
A/ because of whom it was written by
B/ because I was reading it relating to a group theme.
It was interesting reading about life and travel more than 200 years ago. Wollstonecraft had an astute eye for detail. There are many digressions in the book, some of more interest than others.
July 23, 2025
The charm of this book lies in Wollstonecraft’s ability to display the beauty of nature and her sensibility, which helps her reflect on her emotions in detail and with such precision.
For me, Wollstonecraft has always been one of the most original and audacious writer of her age. At times, she can sound too cynical and critical, which even she acknowledges in the letters, but the reader can still find humour in her criticism.
It is no wonder that the Letters is the work that has been the best received by the critics of her time and made Godwin fall in love with her.
For me, Wollstonecraft has always been one of the most original and audacious writer of her age. At times, she can sound too cynical and critical, which even she acknowledges in the letters, but the reader can still find humour in her criticism.
It is no wonder that the Letters is the work that has been the best received by the critics of her time and made Godwin fall in love with her.
“What a long time it requires to know ourselves; and yet almost every one has more of this knowledge than he is willing to own, even to himself.”
March 3, 2017
The dearth of pre-1800 travel literature for this region and the authorship of these 25 short letters (22 on topic) make them significant. In 1795 Mary Wollstonecraft learned that, in her absence, her “husband” (as registered in France but not fully legal) was living with an actress. Shortly after, she made the trip described in these letters with their infant daughter on his behalf. Her mission, to track down Gilbert Imlay’s “partner” and missing cargo, is not mentioned in the letters. Her broken heart is alluded to, but not explained. The letters describe the scenery, modes of transport and accommodation and give observations on the people, their government, commerce and culture.
We can easily download scenic images from anywhere, anytime, but 18th century readers surely appreciated (this was a popular book) what we consider overdone writing on waterfalls, mountains, roads, rock formations farms and homes. What stays with the modern reader, are the all too few glimpses of the people, their way of life and their customs; this prose is similarly dated but Wollstonecraft is ahead of her time in what she chooses to describe and what she says about it.
She has observations on the role of women, how they dress, marry, work hard and are treated; but overall, there is more on the poor. She notes the very low wages and how this results in groveling and dishonesty. Protective import and export policies favor the merchant class and raise the price of goods making items of clothing out of reach for the poor. Wollstonecraft observes capital punishment and notes how this kind of public display does not deter crime and sadly people enjoy the spectacle. She notes the crude life of working people. Most accept injustice as part of life; those who try to change things are severely punished.
There are two recurring themes about human progress. One, stated most clearly on p.71, is that “manners will introduce a finer moral feeling”. The other is the idea that science and progress should change values from pursuit of convenience to developing the senses and taste.
The publisher has included the letters Wollstonecraft wrote to Imlay while on this trip. These had been originally published by Wollstonecraft’s second husband. These and the excerpts from his book on her have historical importance, but leave me a little breathless about a man publishing the most intimate writing of his wife and the details of her heartbreak.
There are some reviews of the material from the time. While the text says they are favorable, I found them tepid and that they demonstrated the sexism she faced.
For all the value of the documents there is an absolutely horrible map. It needs an outline the country borders. I needed a magnifying glass to read the names of the places.
That the author of these letters is Wollstonecraft sets a high bar that is not met. Amid the thick prose I found too few observations to say I got much out of it.
November 9, 2015
I have read The Vindication for the Rights of Woman several times, and though as a modern feminist I cannot agree with all Wollstonecraft says, I always feel very strongly when reading it, and am convinced of Wollstonecraft's daring, intelligence and strength. Reading this collection of letters was, therefore, something of a disappointment.
As I described it to a friend, Mary Wollstonecraft suddenly turns out to be a sort of proto-Lady Catherine de Bourgh, commenting on everything, giving her opinion on everything (sometimes informed, sometimes not so much), and most of all strongly criticising all those around her. She still displays her intelligence when it comes to political matters and general reflections on matters of state both in the countries she visits and in England. These musings are interpolated with musings of the romantic kind, writing about the many majestic sights of Scandinavia, explaining what effects these have on her personally, praising the sublimity of the landscapes. What makes her a somewhat annoying narrator are the constant comments on the inhabitatns of Scandinivia, constantly comparing them to other Europeans and, of course, unfavourably setting them off against the English. She is positively unkind concerning these people, who host her and wish to show her their country, which is very disappointing.
Letters was Wollstonecraft's most popular text during her lifetime, and it certainly has interesting moments, nuggets of information that are exhilarating or thought-provoking. It does a fairly good job, I imagine, of sketching the political situation in the different countries and cleverly links certain outlandish practises to English customs, forcing the reader to re-evaluate their own opinions. It is a pity Wollstonecraft barely ever stops to do exactly that herself.
As I described it to a friend, Mary Wollstonecraft suddenly turns out to be a sort of proto-Lady Catherine de Bourgh, commenting on everything, giving her opinion on everything (sometimes informed, sometimes not so much), and most of all strongly criticising all those around her. She still displays her intelligence when it comes to political matters and general reflections on matters of state both in the countries she visits and in England. These musings are interpolated with musings of the romantic kind, writing about the many majestic sights of Scandinavia, explaining what effects these have on her personally, praising the sublimity of the landscapes. What makes her a somewhat annoying narrator are the constant comments on the inhabitatns of Scandinivia, constantly comparing them to other Europeans and, of course, unfavourably setting them off against the English. She is positively unkind concerning these people, who host her and wish to show her their country, which is very disappointing.
Letters was Wollstonecraft's most popular text during her lifetime, and it certainly has interesting moments, nuggets of information that are exhilarating or thought-provoking. It does a fairly good job, I imagine, of sketching the political situation in the different countries and cleverly links certain outlandish practises to English customs, forcing the reader to re-evaluate their own opinions. It is a pity Wollstonecraft barely ever stops to do exactly that herself.
July 23, 2025
It seems artificial to give a book like this a star rating, but such is the tyranny of Goodreads’s design. In this instance I have rated it based on its place in the history of ideas in Britain, which is an important but perhaps not central one.
This slim volume is not really a collection of letters written by Mary Wollstonecraft during her journey through Scandinavia over the course of a summer in the 1790s. She did undertake the journey, but the real letters she wrote—to the lover who ghosted her after she gave birth to their child—would not bear public scrutiny. So she created these letters from the journal she kept during her travels, though elements of the personal still creep in from time to time, especially toward the end. Having read a biography of Wollstonecraft, I understand the context of her journey and its goals, but contemporary readers may well have been mystified.
On the surface, the book is an account of her travels, with her impressions of the cultures and economies of the places she visits. But she both expands and subverts the travel narrative genre of her day by making her account more personal, an inner journey as well as a physical one. She interprets all the landscapes she sees subjectively, judging them based on the emotions they inspire in her. She also uses the narrative to argue for her worldviews, which would have been startlingly feminist (had such a term existed) and radically democratic to readers of her day—and even to a degree of ours. She articulates the power dynamics of heterosexual relationships in a remarkably modern way, decries slavery, and dissects the impact of greed on the human psyche, among other divagations.
If that makes the book seem like a bit of a hot mess, it could be seen that way. But it is also a work of courage and originality, and a fascinating window into the mind of a brilliant, iconoclastic, and passionate woman. And it influenced much subsequent thought and writing, especially that of the Romantics. It is definitely worth reading for anyone interested in Wollstonecraft or her era.
This slim volume is not really a collection of letters written by Mary Wollstonecraft during her journey through Scandinavia over the course of a summer in the 1790s. She did undertake the journey, but the real letters she wrote—to the lover who ghosted her after she gave birth to their child—would not bear public scrutiny. So she created these letters from the journal she kept during her travels, though elements of the personal still creep in from time to time, especially toward the end. Having read a biography of Wollstonecraft, I understand the context of her journey and its goals, but contemporary readers may well have been mystified.
On the surface, the book is an account of her travels, with her impressions of the cultures and economies of the places she visits. But she both expands and subverts the travel narrative genre of her day by making her account more personal, an inner journey as well as a physical one. She interprets all the landscapes she sees subjectively, judging them based on the emotions they inspire in her. She also uses the narrative to argue for her worldviews, which would have been startlingly feminist (had such a term existed) and radically democratic to readers of her day—and even to a degree of ours. She articulates the power dynamics of heterosexual relationships in a remarkably modern way, decries slavery, and dissects the impact of greed on the human psyche, among other divagations.
If that makes the book seem like a bit of a hot mess, it could be seen that way. But it is also a work of courage and originality, and a fascinating window into the mind of a brilliant, iconoclastic, and passionate woman. And it influenced much subsequent thought and writing, especially that of the Romantics. It is definitely worth reading for anyone interested in Wollstonecraft or her era.
January 9, 2024
Ingrid Horrocks in the introduction to the Broadview edition of this book wrote:
When I picked up this book, it was mostly on a whim, I just finished History of a Six Weeks' Tour Through a Part of France, Switzerland, Germany and Holland by Wollstonecraft's daughter Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and I found myself really enjoying the travelogues. I knew MWS was inspired to write History of a Six Week's Tour because of her mother's A Short Residence so this really was a natural direction for me to continue in. And while I loved History of Sex Week's Tour this book simply is on entirely new level. There is so much this book contains and it was much harder reading than I expected, because yes, there are philosophical and social commentary bits.
But then, there are also emotional bits - both joyous expressing her love for her daughter Fanny, who travels with her as a toddler. But also parts that show her depression, anger and the (at this point) unrequited love she feels for Gilbert Imlay, father of her daughter. Knowing the evets of Wollstonecraft's life makes this read like a tragedy. As a reader, you know than in three years from publishing those letters, she will be dead and all the worries she expresses about the education and upbringings of her daughters will be jeopardized. You know that her beloved daughter Fanny will commit suicide at the age of 22. The read is pretty emotionally charged and I absolutely didn't see that coming.
This is also a book full of whimsical descriptions and beautiful nature sceneries. There is for example the playful passage where Wollstonecraft imagines herself swimming with the seals that made company to their ship before. But most of the descriptions do mirror the Romantic trends of nature loving - which doesn't make them any less beautiful.
I don't want to spend too much space here on the theoretical ideas that Wollstonecraft presents here. Just because that wasn't my main focus when reading and also because I feel like that's not something I could even remotely tackle in a review. So just briefly, I think it surprises no one that this book focuses a lot on women and compares their positions in different countries based on the author's experiences. But it might be more surprising how big attention pays Wollstonecraft to class and the way servants are treated. In some ways this might be a bit idealised, but I appreciated it none the less:
She also discusses laws, capital punishment (against), prison system, prolonged courtships which I believe is a code for bigger sexual freedom for women and the existence of sea monsters in Norway. This list is obviously by no means exhaustive, but I finished this book back in summer and as I already said this isn't even an ambition I have with this review.
To wrap this up, this is one of my favourite reads of this year and one of the most surprising. As I said, I read it on a whim and had no clue what I was getting myself into. I read the Project Guttenberg edition (for free here: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3529) but before I even finished it, I ordered the Broadview edition, because I knew I would want more of this once I finished and I was right - so a re-read of this book is in my future! If all of this sounds interesting to you, please do read it, you are not going to regret it, even though I admit that trying to pinpoint the contemporary audience for this one is hard. This book deserves to be more widely read though!
I can't figure out who is the author of the painting, but it should be a Norwegian author.
A Short Residence is at once a moving epistolary travel narrative, a politically motivated ethnographical tract on the comparative treatment of women, children, and labourers, a work of scenic tourism, and a sentimental journey. (...) She [Mary Wollstonecraft] was a prolific and thoughtful reviewer of works of travel literature and, in A Short Residence, she extends her political thinking by creating a hybridized literary form, reworking the travel genre so that it absorbs and integrates a variety of discourses.
When I picked up this book, it was mostly on a whim, I just finished History of a Six Weeks' Tour Through a Part of France, Switzerland, Germany and Holland by Wollstonecraft's daughter Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and I found myself really enjoying the travelogues. I knew MWS was inspired to write History of a Six Week's Tour because of her mother's A Short Residence so this really was a natural direction for me to continue in. And while I loved History of Sex Week's Tour this book simply is on entirely new level. There is so much this book contains and it was much harder reading than I expected, because yes, there are philosophical and social commentary bits.
But then, there are also emotional bits - both joyous expressing her love for her daughter Fanny, who travels with her as a toddler. But also parts that show her depression, anger and the (at this point) unrequited love she feels for Gilbert Imlay, father of her daughter. Knowing the evets of Wollstonecraft's life makes this read like a tragedy. As a reader, you know than in three years from publishing those letters, she will be dead and all the worries she expresses about the education and upbringings of her daughters will be jeopardized. You know that her beloved daughter Fanny will commit suicide at the age of 22. The read is pretty emotionally charged and I absolutely didn't see that coming.
My child was sleeping with equal calmness - innocent and sweet as the closing flowers.
This is also a book full of whimsical descriptions and beautiful nature sceneries. There is for example the playful passage where Wollstonecraft imagines herself swimming with the seals that made company to their ship before. But most of the descriptions do mirror the Romantic trends of nature loving - which doesn't make them any less beautiful.
Before i came here I could scarcely have imagined that a simple object (rocks) could have admitted of so many interesting combinations, always grand and often sublime.
I don't want to spend too much space here on the theoretical ideas that Wollstonecraft presents here. Just because that wasn't my main focus when reading and also because I feel like that's not something I could even remotely tackle in a review. So just briefly, I think it surprises no one that this book focuses a lot on women and compares their positions in different countries based on the author's experiences. But it might be more surprising how big attention pays Wollstonecraft to class and the way servants are treated. In some ways this might be a bit idealised, but I appreciated it none the less:
The treatment of servants in most countries, I grant, is very unjust, and in England, that boasted land of freedom, it is often extremely tyrannical. I have frequently, with indignation, heard gentlemen declare that they would never allow a servant to answer them; and ladies of the most exquisite sensibility, who were continually exclaiming against the cruelty of the vulgar to the brute creation, have in my presence forgot that their attendants had human feelings as well as forms. I do not know a more agreeable sight than to see servants part of a family.
She also discusses laws, capital punishment (against), prison system, prolonged courtships which I believe is a code for bigger sexual freedom for women and the existence of sea monsters in Norway. This list is obviously by no means exhaustive, but I finished this book back in summer and as I already said this isn't even an ambition I have with this review.
To wrap this up, this is one of my favourite reads of this year and one of the most surprising. As I said, I read it on a whim and had no clue what I was getting myself into. I read the Project Guttenberg edition (for free here: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3529) but before I even finished it, I ordered the Broadview edition, because I knew I would want more of this once I finished and I was right - so a re-read of this book is in my future! If all of this sounds interesting to you, please do read it, you are not going to regret it, even though I admit that trying to pinpoint the contemporary audience for this one is hard. This book deserves to be more widely read though!
I can't figure out who is the author of the painting, but it should be a Norwegian author.
January 11, 2023
3.5 stars. An open and insightful collection of letters that is almost infinitely more interesting in what it tells us about Wollstonecraft than what it does about contemporary Scandinavia. The serious depictions of poverty and grandiose discussions of the sublime nature seem like overcompensation for the stinging vein of hurt that runs through these letters to her lover, Gilbert Imlay, who never replied. Read for class, now time to write an essay on it!
February 11, 2024
In 1795, while French armies roamed over Europe, Mary Wollstonecraft set off for Scandinavia, baby daughter and nursemaid in tow, where English travellers were very rare and lone female travellers unheard of. These letters, edited from those she sent to Gilbert Imlay (the American father of her child and all-round unreliable cad), show her to be a warm-hearted, intelligent observer, alive to natural beauty, passionate about politics, and alternately hopeful and despairing of the future (both her personal future and the future of humanity, of which she had great hopes, despite the horrifying turn recently taken by the revolution in France). A book full of surprises and evidence of a wonderful mind on every page.
August 5, 2020
This epistolary travel narrative, reads almost like an anthropological treatise, especially in its examination of the minutiae of everyday Northern European life, with a focus on the subject and treatment of women. Also, there is a concentrated effort in writing about the woes of early capitalism. In Letter Nineteen, Wollstonecraft writes: “And I am persuaded that till capital punishments are entirely abolished executions ought to have every appearance of horror given to them, instead of being, as they are now, a scene of amusement for the gaping crowd, where sympathy is quickly effaced by curiosity ... In short, under whatever point of view I consider society, it appears to me that an adoration of property is the root of all evil.” Very fascinating abolitionist focus in these letters.
July 14, 2019
I had a little trouble getting into these Scandinavian letters that didn't take me away at first sight and I understood why in letter XX: Mary Wollstonecraft lacks the freedom and humour of a Gautier Theophile or nan Alexandre Dumas when they were writing their own travel stories. This may be due to the nature of MW, but it is also due to the fact that she is a woman. Let me explain:
Although she had already written The Vindication of the Rights of Women, MW, in my very humble opinion, does not seem to allow herself to express herself too much on her own feelings: those of the betrayed but still loving lover, those of the mother who loves her baby tenderly. She probably thought that this would be considered "female sentimentality" in the most pejorative sense and that it would undermine the respect that would be given to her work as a writer.
Secondly, she does not take a leisure trip or a curious adventurer's trip, as Gautier or Dumas may have done in Spain or Russia, for example. Her trip is for the benefit of the lover who betrayed her, so that she can investigate the disappearance of one of his merchant ships. MW therefore has work requirements. Perhaps she also hopes that her lover will come back to her because of the trouble she has gone to for his business?
Finally, she travels with her daughter Fanny, who is barely a year old. This does not leave the freedom of mind of a male traveller, single and unfettered.
But perhaps MW has prevented herself from revealing her heart too much out of restraint if not out of modesty? Does she want to prove that a woman is as smart as a man and would it be the reason why she would only allow herself very, very little humour or carelessness? These letters are those of an intelligent and strong woman ― with a good big child's heart that can be so easily hurt ― doubled by an "investigator concerned about the happiness of men," more than a tourist... and that's a good thing!
In any case, each letter contains a gold nugget, such as the
Letter I:
"At supper my host told me bluntly that I was a woman of observation, for I asked him men's questions."
Letter II:
A very fine remark on civilization, imagination, pleasures and senses, which I let you discover.
Letter III:
A reflection on tourism that I have already done for myself:
Two or three years ago, I went to Rome. I had dreamed of going there for many years, to see the paintings in the churches, the magnificent squares, the wonderful fountains... But I must say that the number of tourists who came to this historic city only because the flight of a low-cost airline allows them to and who multiply their destinations without distinction, has completely disgusted me. The streets were black with people taking selfies to prove that they had been to Rome. These tourists seem to be aiming only to tick a long list of destinations without even appreciating the architecture, history, inhabitants or their cuisine.
MW expresses this so well and with what right intuition!
"As in travelling, the keeping of a journal excites to many useful inquiries that would not have been thought of had the traveller only determined to see all he could see, without ever asking himself for what purpose."
Letter VI :
An extremely touching welcome from Norwegian hosts that reveals MW's disturbed state of mind:
"The sympathy I inspired, thus dropping down from the clouds in a strange land, affected me more than it would have done had not my spirits been harassed by various causes--by much thinking--musing almost to madness--and even by a sort of weak melancholy that hung about my heart at parting with my daughter for the first time."
MW had left her child with her maid in Sweden during her trip to Norway. We'll see that she'll miss her daughter much more than that. But this leads to the following paragraph:
"You know that, as a female, I am particularly attached to her; I feel more than a mother's fondness and anxiety when I reflect on the dependent and oppressed state of her sex. I dread lest she should be forced to sacrifice her heart to her principles, or principles to her heart. With trembling hand I shall cultivate sensibility and cherish delicacy of sentiment, lest, whilst I lend fresh blushes to the rose, I sharpen the thorns that will wound the breast I would fain guard; I dread to unfold her mind, lest it should render her unfit for the world she is to inhabit. Hapless woman! what a fate is thine!"
It is clairvoyant, heartbreaking, I have nothing to add, except that the last lines of this letter, which I do not quote you, are full of emotion and sensitivity.
Letter VII:
A beautiful question about our existence on earth that ends with a more personal sentence about the absence of the loved one.
Letter VIII :
Intelligent reflections on the establishment of power and the reasoning of the people. I can't quote you everything, you'd be angry if I didn't let you discover these letters for yourself!
Letter X:
confirms her rigorous character in her taste for the majestic and straight pinetree that she prefers to the beechtree growing in all directions. MW is reason and observation:
It is fascinating when she tells how Norwegians live from a political organization point of view, from the king to the simple peasant or fisherman.
At the end of the letter, MW goes from sadness to joy, so strongly and quickly that it must be difficult for her to live so:
"Ah! let me be happy whilst I can. ... I must flee from thought, and find refuge from sorrow in a strong imagination--the only solace for a feeling heart."
Letter XI :
The third paragraph is surprising: In a boat that wanders between two coasts, avoiding deadly rocks, MW meditates on "the future progress of the world". It is not surprising that she is so easily moved, while she cries over the living conditions of men in a million years!
"Do not smile; I really became distressed for these fellow creatures yet unborn."
Letter XIII :
A beautiful one! MW pours out on the love for her daughter she misses and the lost love of Imlay who cheated on her and left her. It's very fair and very beautiful.
It should also be remembered that MW travels in an unknown country whose language she does not know, and whose no one knwos hers, or so few words. I know this feeling of loneliness that can be a challenge. A small quote, for the pleasure of beautiful quotes:
"I felt like a bird fluttering on the ground unable to mount, yet unwilling to crawl tranquilly like a reptile, whilst still conscious it had wings.Beyond poetry, what a pain for a woman to feel that!"
Letter XIV:
"…the world is still the world, and man the same compound of weakness and folly, who must occasionally excite love and disgust, admiration and contempt."
But MW writes:
"I want faith!"
So, despite everything, she has faith in men, but not in all men. On several occasions, MW returns to the misdeeds of alcohol, to the ineptitude of too much personal enrichment for the sole purpose of acquiring more material goods, and to the dubious honesty of politicians...
"To be honester than the laws require is by most people thought a work of supererogation; and to slip through the grate of the law has ever exercised the abilities of adventurers, who wish to get rich the shortest way. Knavery without personal danger is an art brought to great perfection by the statesman and swindler; and meaner knaves are not tardy in following their footsteps."
I quite agree!
Letter XV:
There is a paragraph of magnificent, moving, pessimistic thoughts inspired by a wooden bridge that spans a stream not far from a waterfall. I can hardly resist quoting it in its entirety, but here is the last line:
"I stretched out my hand to eternity, bounding over the dark speck of life to come."
Letter XIX:
There are also two paragraphs in this letter on the conditions of men and women and their interaction, which is very fair... feminism
"Still harping on the same subject, you will exclaim--How can I avoid it, when most of the struggles of an eventful life have been occasioned by the oppressed state of my sex? We reason deeply when we feel forcibly."
Letter XXII
MW is an intelligent traveller: you can feel a progression in her reasoning and even she does change her mind on certain points, which shows that her mind is open, curious, understanding and in constant evolution. MW is thinking, thinking. But her maid made a point and MW’s conclusion is funny:
"Marguerite, it is true, was much amused by the costume of the women, particularly by the pannier which adorned both their heads and tails, and with great glee recounted to me the stories she had treasured up for her family when once more within the barriers of dear Paris, not forgetting, with that arch, agreeable vanity peculiar to the French, which they exhibit whilst half ridiculing it, to remind me of the importance she should assume when she informed her friends of all her journeys by sea and land, showing the pieces of money she had collected, and stammering out a few foreign phrases, which she repeated in a true Parisian accent. Happy thoughtlessness! ay, and enviable harmless vanity, which thus produced a gaité du cœur worth all my philosophy!"
Annex of MW to her letters:
MW has observed peoples with different customs due to the climate, geographical location, their personal history and their political organization. She clearly sees what changes would be beneficial to these countries, what direction they should take to achieve more happiness, culture and peace. But she also understands that one cannot make a people happy suddenly and according to one's own conception of happiness.
I think that a people is like a person: it can only find happiness in itself. There is no point in upsetting it by war or by laws too quickly establish that would not follow the slower evolution of generations. A word to the wise!
PS: I read this book in a very good French translation, I took the English quotes from wikisource. And, no, I didn't tell you everything about it!
Although she had already written The Vindication of the Rights of Women, MW, in my very humble opinion, does not seem to allow herself to express herself too much on her own feelings: those of the betrayed but still loving lover, those of the mother who loves her baby tenderly. She probably thought that this would be considered "female sentimentality" in the most pejorative sense and that it would undermine the respect that would be given to her work as a writer.
Secondly, she does not take a leisure trip or a curious adventurer's trip, as Gautier or Dumas may have done in Spain or Russia, for example. Her trip is for the benefit of the lover who betrayed her, so that she can investigate the disappearance of one of his merchant ships. MW therefore has work requirements. Perhaps she also hopes that her lover will come back to her because of the trouble she has gone to for his business?
Finally, she travels with her daughter Fanny, who is barely a year old. This does not leave the freedom of mind of a male traveller, single and unfettered.
But perhaps MW has prevented herself from revealing her heart too much out of restraint if not out of modesty? Does she want to prove that a woman is as smart as a man and would it be the reason why she would only allow herself very, very little humour or carelessness? These letters are those of an intelligent and strong woman ― with a good big child's heart that can be so easily hurt ― doubled by an "investigator concerned about the happiness of men," more than a tourist... and that's a good thing!
In any case, each letter contains a gold nugget, such as the
Letter I:
"At supper my host told me bluntly that I was a woman of observation, for I asked him men's questions."
Letter II:
A very fine remark on civilization, imagination, pleasures and senses, which I let you discover.
Letter III:
A reflection on tourism that I have already done for myself:
Two or three years ago, I went to Rome. I had dreamed of going there for many years, to see the paintings in the churches, the magnificent squares, the wonderful fountains... But I must say that the number of tourists who came to this historic city only because the flight of a low-cost airline allows them to and who multiply their destinations without distinction, has completely disgusted me. The streets were black with people taking selfies to prove that they had been to Rome. These tourists seem to be aiming only to tick a long list of destinations without even appreciating the architecture, history, inhabitants or their cuisine.
MW expresses this so well and with what right intuition!
"As in travelling, the keeping of a journal excites to many useful inquiries that would not have been thought of had the traveller only determined to see all he could see, without ever asking himself for what purpose."
Letter VI :
An extremely touching welcome from Norwegian hosts that reveals MW's disturbed state of mind:
"The sympathy I inspired, thus dropping down from the clouds in a strange land, affected me more than it would have done had not my spirits been harassed by various causes--by much thinking--musing almost to madness--and even by a sort of weak melancholy that hung about my heart at parting with my daughter for the first time."
MW had left her child with her maid in Sweden during her trip to Norway. We'll see that she'll miss her daughter much more than that. But this leads to the following paragraph:
"You know that, as a female, I am particularly attached to her; I feel more than a mother's fondness and anxiety when I reflect on the dependent and oppressed state of her sex. I dread lest she should be forced to sacrifice her heart to her principles, or principles to her heart. With trembling hand I shall cultivate sensibility and cherish delicacy of sentiment, lest, whilst I lend fresh blushes to the rose, I sharpen the thorns that will wound the breast I would fain guard; I dread to unfold her mind, lest it should render her unfit for the world she is to inhabit. Hapless woman! what a fate is thine!"
It is clairvoyant, heartbreaking, I have nothing to add, except that the last lines of this letter, which I do not quote you, are full of emotion and sensitivity.
Letter VII:
A beautiful question about our existence on earth that ends with a more personal sentence about the absence of the loved one.
Letter VIII :
Intelligent reflections on the establishment of power and the reasoning of the people. I can't quote you everything, you'd be angry if I didn't let you discover these letters for yourself!
Letter X:
confirms her rigorous character in her taste for the majestic and straight pinetree that she prefers to the beechtree growing in all directions. MW is reason and observation:
It is fascinating when she tells how Norwegians live from a political organization point of view, from the king to the simple peasant or fisherman.
At the end of the letter, MW goes from sadness to joy, so strongly and quickly that it must be difficult for her to live so:
"Ah! let me be happy whilst I can. ... I must flee from thought, and find refuge from sorrow in a strong imagination--the only solace for a feeling heart."
Letter XI :
The third paragraph is surprising: In a boat that wanders between two coasts, avoiding deadly rocks, MW meditates on "the future progress of the world". It is not surprising that she is so easily moved, while she cries over the living conditions of men in a million years!
"Do not smile; I really became distressed for these fellow creatures yet unborn."
Letter XIII :
A beautiful one! MW pours out on the love for her daughter she misses and the lost love of Imlay who cheated on her and left her. It's very fair and very beautiful.
It should also be remembered that MW travels in an unknown country whose language she does not know, and whose no one knwos hers, or so few words. I know this feeling of loneliness that can be a challenge. A small quote, for the pleasure of beautiful quotes:
"I felt like a bird fluttering on the ground unable to mount, yet unwilling to crawl tranquilly like a reptile, whilst still conscious it had wings.Beyond poetry, what a pain for a woman to feel that!"
Letter XIV:
"…the world is still the world, and man the same compound of weakness and folly, who must occasionally excite love and disgust, admiration and contempt."
But MW writes:
"I want faith!"
So, despite everything, she has faith in men, but not in all men. On several occasions, MW returns to the misdeeds of alcohol, to the ineptitude of too much personal enrichment for the sole purpose of acquiring more material goods, and to the dubious honesty of politicians...
"To be honester than the laws require is by most people thought a work of supererogation; and to slip through the grate of the law has ever exercised the abilities of adventurers, who wish to get rich the shortest way. Knavery without personal danger is an art brought to great perfection by the statesman and swindler; and meaner knaves are not tardy in following their footsteps."
I quite agree!
Letter XV:
There is a paragraph of magnificent, moving, pessimistic thoughts inspired by a wooden bridge that spans a stream not far from a waterfall. I can hardly resist quoting it in its entirety, but here is the last line:
"I stretched out my hand to eternity, bounding over the dark speck of life to come."
Letter XIX:
There are also two paragraphs in this letter on the conditions of men and women and their interaction, which is very fair... feminism
"Still harping on the same subject, you will exclaim--How can I avoid it, when most of the struggles of an eventful life have been occasioned by the oppressed state of my sex? We reason deeply when we feel forcibly."
Letter XXII
MW is an intelligent traveller: you can feel a progression in her reasoning and even she does change her mind on certain points, which shows that her mind is open, curious, understanding and in constant evolution. MW is thinking, thinking. But her maid made a point and MW’s conclusion is funny:
"Marguerite, it is true, was much amused by the costume of the women, particularly by the pannier which adorned both their heads and tails, and with great glee recounted to me the stories she had treasured up for her family when once more within the barriers of dear Paris, not forgetting, with that arch, agreeable vanity peculiar to the French, which they exhibit whilst half ridiculing it, to remind me of the importance she should assume when she informed her friends of all her journeys by sea and land, showing the pieces of money she had collected, and stammering out a few foreign phrases, which she repeated in a true Parisian accent. Happy thoughtlessness! ay, and enviable harmless vanity, which thus produced a gaité du cœur worth all my philosophy!"
Annex of MW to her letters:
MW has observed peoples with different customs due to the climate, geographical location, their personal history and their political organization. She clearly sees what changes would be beneficial to these countries, what direction they should take to achieve more happiness, culture and peace. But she also understands that one cannot make a people happy suddenly and according to one's own conception of happiness.
I think that a people is like a person: it can only find happiness in itself. There is no point in upsetting it by war or by laws too quickly establish that would not follow the slower evolution of generations. A word to the wise!
PS: I read this book in a very good French translation, I took the English quotes from wikisource. And, no, I didn't tell you everything about it!
February 28, 2012
An interesting record of a intrepid adventurer. I didn't enjoy this quite as much as I had hoped, but my expectations were high. There were a lot of brilliant insights into 18th century society and politics, and many of Wollstonecraft's reflections, particularly about women in society, still apply today. I didn't like some of her critiques, which often sounded Puritanical and detached. Also her commentary on Nature began inspiring but after a while became a bit too whimsical and repetitive.
April 22, 2012
I tried really hard to like this book, Wollstonecraft being considered the first modern feminist, but I found my attention flagging during her 'observations'. I know its not intellectual to say so but I love reading for a good plot. And this book was lacking it. Also, on another note, I found Wollstonecraft's tone of feminism disagreeable. I didn't really see the necessity of describing how fat and ugly the women of Sweden were...
March 16, 2023
Veldig interessante beskrivelser av Norge på slutten av 1700-tallet, og det var gøy å lese om de tingene som fortsatt er likt, som lite økonomiske forskjeller relativt til resten av verden og at vi ikke har så strenge fengsel. Det var også morsomt når hun nevnte at familier i Norge spiser middag veldig tidlig og at hun ikke likte grovbrød.
Hun syntes at vi var veldig ukulturerte og hun hadde en del andre negative ting å si, men i sin helhet syntes jeg det var kjempespennende.
Hun syntes at vi var veldig ukulturerte og hun hadde en del andre negative ting å si, men i sin helhet syntes jeg det var kjempespennende.
September 11, 2019
The intimate tone of these letters, edited from genuine correspondence and left with “me” and “you” intact, helped them feel fresh and accessible over 200 years later. They are vital and immediate, coming from a real person and seemingly directed right at the reader. I only wish the descriptions of sights, food, clothes, etc were more detailed and less generalized.
Read
December 15, 2022As a novel? Boring. As a historical document for history, politics and society in 1700s Scandinavia? Facinating.
August 6, 2025
4.5/5
This book was gifted to me by a dear friend and mentor at the exact time I needed it.
First of all, I don’t ever think I have saved so many quotes and passages from a book that I relate to so deeply as I did with Wollstonecraft’s words in this collection.
The fact that the following two extracts were taken from the same spread of pages tells you everything you need to know about her genius.
“Thus do we wish as we float down the stream of life, whilst chance does more to gratify a desire of knowledge than our best-laid plans. A degree of exertion, produced by some want, more or less painful, is probably the price we must all pay for knowledge. How few authors or artists have arrived at eminence who have not lived by their employment?”
and
“Nothing can be more disgusting than the rooms and men towards the evening: breath, teeth, clothes, and furniture, all are spoilt. lt is well that the women are not very delicate, or they would only love their husbands because they were their husbands.”
She is the perfect mixture of deeply poetical and deeply savage.
Secondly, as a Danish person, it was extremely interesting to see how the cultures in Scandinavia have developed with time—especially through the lens of a feminist ahead of her time.
Thirdly and finally, she made me feel everything so brutally with every fiber of my being. From taking me through the vast wonders of Norway (that I have so desperately longed to see with my own eyes) to the raw and emotive passages that spoke to my soul. It was somehow comforting to find that another human-being from two hundred years ago could understand and experience the exact same feelings as we might struggle with today—despite a vastly different era, lifestyle, and environment.
It felt like finding a friend across time and space.
This book was gifted to me by a dear friend and mentor at the exact time I needed it.
First of all, I don’t ever think I have saved so many quotes and passages from a book that I relate to so deeply as I did with Wollstonecraft’s words in this collection.
The fact that the following two extracts were taken from the same spread of pages tells you everything you need to know about her genius.
“Thus do we wish as we float down the stream of life, whilst chance does more to gratify a desire of knowledge than our best-laid plans. A degree of exertion, produced by some want, more or less painful, is probably the price we must all pay for knowledge. How few authors or artists have arrived at eminence who have not lived by their employment?”
and
“Nothing can be more disgusting than the rooms and men towards the evening: breath, teeth, clothes, and furniture, all are spoilt. lt is well that the women are not very delicate, or they would only love their husbands because they were their husbands.”
She is the perfect mixture of deeply poetical and deeply savage.
Secondly, as a Danish person, it was extremely interesting to see how the cultures in Scandinavia have developed with time—especially through the lens of a feminist ahead of her time.
Thirdly and finally, she made me feel everything so brutally with every fiber of my being. From taking me through the vast wonders of Norway (that I have so desperately longed to see with my own eyes) to the raw and emotive passages that spoke to my soul. It was somehow comforting to find that another human-being from two hundred years ago could understand and experience the exact same feelings as we might struggle with today—despite a vastly different era, lifestyle, and environment.
It felt like finding a friend across time and space.
September 29, 2020
A fine collection of journal entries and correspondences from Wollstonecraft’s journeys. Nothing profound, but it does illuminate just how entrenched the Romantics were in their philosophy. Whether musing on a Swedish stone or a Norwegian funeral rite, Wollstonecraft interacts with the world as if it’s a blank sheet of paper.
Read if you want to flex on your friends. It’s the literary equivalent of a deep-cut.
Read if you want to flex on your friends. It’s the literary equivalent of a deep-cut.
February 2, 2022
Gorgeously written, staunchly opinionated, with a fascinating background and an honestly flabbergasting courage to boot. Wollstonecraft was so punk it's ridiculous. It does read a bit like a racist ethnography, but racist ethnographies weren't really a thing in the 18th century, so maybe they read like her Letters instead. Thoroughly enjoyed every part of this, and would 10/10 recommend to anyone who wants to read more of Wollstonecraft (especially something by her beyond Vindication, which would naturally be the introductory text to her work for most people).
August 1, 2025
Beautiful writing. Started reading this prior to visiting Stockholm to get in the observational/traveling mindset. Wollstonecraft weaves cultural comparisons into descriptions of the landscapes she travels through. Each letter is punctuated with melancholy emotions regarding her spurned affections for the man who sent her on the voyage. The letters are a beautiful expression of feminine complexity.
April 29, 2021
[read for ENGL 19500] it was alright nice descriptions tho
November 3, 2020
In 1796, Mary Wollstonecraft went to Norway to transact business for Gilbert Imlay, common-law husband and father of her daughter, who she took with her. The relationship was already in terminal decline and the week before she left on her journey she’d already tried to commit suicide with Laudanum. Already the author of Vindication of the Rights of Men and Vindication of the Rights of Women and a novel, so she decided to make a little money with a travel book.
…And it’s a wonderful example of the genre. Wollstonecraft has an ability to describe the sublime and the beautiful in a way that evokes memories of similar feelings I’ve had and, what is more amazing, doesn’t bore the shit of of me. How many travelogues and novels have tried to describe dramatic landscapes and raise my flagging sensibilities but succeeded in putting me to sleep? As well as all this, the descriptions are mixed with interesting readings of social and political life and some genuinely interesting reveries. The book shows a keen mind married to depth of feeling with the ability to actually craft meaningful prose out of it.
I warmed to the book on the first page, where she is in a boat in peril off the Swedish coast and remarks that in England, there’d be a rash of lifeboats out to save them, though this isn’t due to any special English benevolence but because they’d be paid per rescue.
The journey itself involved travelling into Sweden, where her two year old daughter, Fanny and her nurse were left behind while she went into Norway to set about the legal wrangling she’s been sent to sort out. Coming back, she then meets up with her baby, travels through Denmark and into Germany where she took a boat back to England from Hamburg.
Sweden she finds a worn down, with lots of people merely existing, an impression that strengthens after she returns from Norway, which she finds to be more independent. Worse that Sweden is Denmark, especially Copenhagen, which had burnt down months before and was not looking its best but, for Wollstonecraft, the worst place she visits is Hamburg. It’s a town where the nouveaux riche and the fallen French aristos mix, though that’s not the problem, it’s the money-grabbing narrow-mindedness of the place. I found it funny read of Wollstonecraft talking about the Scandinavian countries as places on their way out of barbarism as they’re now ofte considered as models of statehood.
She mixes with people, very few of which she can properly communicate with and spends as much time as she can outside by herself, admiring a field “enamelled with the sweetest wild flowers” and a great many impressive rocks. She finds it hard to be social, not only can she speak none of the languages, she doesn’t enjoy the forms of entertainment her hosts have for her, eating very large dinners in stuffy, closed rooms accompanied by lots of booze and smoking. She also takes up rowing, which gives her plenty of fresh air and time to think, “my train of thinking kept time, as it were, with the oars.”
Many of her thoughts are about, “my favourite subject of contemplation, the future improvement of the world.” She has a really interesting view of progress, in general it was extremely positive, convinced that ‘civilisation is a blessing.’ She even says that “The increasing population of the earth must necessarily tend to its improvement, as the means of existence are multiplied by improvements.” She sees this is particularly true in the case of women, where she sees greater cultural and social capital having a trickle-down effect and raising the possibilities for women above mere domestic drudges.
She’s also worried about progress, she lambasts the avariciousness of early capitalism and the way it can narrow minds to anything but money. At one point she worries about the future when humans have used up all resources and even moved into the wildernesses of Norway. She admits it’s a silly thing to worry about that may not come to pass for thousands of years, something which was very uncomfortable to this reader two-hundred and twenty years later living in a time where her fear could take place in the next eighty years.
As she says, “common minds rarely break through general rules,” and Mary Wollstonecraft clearly has no common mind. She dismisses the notion of national characteristics, especially the notion of them being formed by weather or landscape but shaped by social systems. She also sees this simplification of complex systems to be an easy cop-out for writers who should do better.
“The most essential service, I presume that authors could render to society, would be to promote enquiry and discussion, instead of making those dogmatical assertions which only appear calculated to gird the human mind round with imaginary circles.”
Of course, one of her big interests is the life of women in the countries she visits, apologising for, “still harping on the same subject you will exclaim- How can I avoid it when most of the struggles of my eventful life have been occasioned by the oppressed state of my sex.”
One of the other interesting little ideas is one she has about how “the preservation of the species, not the individual, that is the design of the Deity,” - a very interesting notion that points to Darwin.
The thing that makes the book really spark, is the sense of vulnerability. There are many luminous, numinous moments in the book but there’s always a sense that they’re moments of joy that bring light in a bedrock of distress. She’s so aware of her own passions, declaring that she “must love and admire with warmth, or I sink into sadness,” and that she has to “catch pleasure pleasure on the wing - I may be melancholy tomorrow.” This is an author who’d tried to kill herself mere weeks before writing the book, and would try again shortly after.
“How frequently has melancholy and even misanthropy taken possession of me, when the world has disgusted me, and friends have proved unkind. O have then considered myself as a particle broken off from the grand mass of mankind; - I was alone, till some involuntary sympathetic emotion, like the attraction of adhesion, made me feel that I was still a part of a mighty whole, from which I could not sever myself.”
The Oxford World’s Classics edition of this book also has excerpts of the genuine letters she wrote to Gilbert Imlay as the trip progressed. From these letters it’s clear that the journey was much harder and Wollstonecraft’s emotional pain much stronger than the published book shows. It’s clear that Imlay is not answering letters and if he is, he’s replying in simple business terms. She spends many of these letters describing her pain and demanding that Imlay either properly commits to her and his daughter, or makes a certain decision to leave them which he doesn’t seem to do. She goes through the pain of breakup, sometimes excusing Imlay,
“my imagination is perpetually shading your defects,” and other times relishing his being out of her life as, “this heart is worthy of the bliss its feelings anticipate.” Those real letters are a difficult read, showing genuine pain that does enter into the published work but in a way that elevates that book beyond ordinary travelogue.
The title may not suggest much but the book is certainly worth a read.
…And it’s a wonderful example of the genre. Wollstonecraft has an ability to describe the sublime and the beautiful in a way that evokes memories of similar feelings I’ve had and, what is more amazing, doesn’t bore the shit of of me. How many travelogues and novels have tried to describe dramatic landscapes and raise my flagging sensibilities but succeeded in putting me to sleep? As well as all this, the descriptions are mixed with interesting readings of social and political life and some genuinely interesting reveries. The book shows a keen mind married to depth of feeling with the ability to actually craft meaningful prose out of it.
I warmed to the book on the first page, where she is in a boat in peril off the Swedish coast and remarks that in England, there’d be a rash of lifeboats out to save them, though this isn’t due to any special English benevolence but because they’d be paid per rescue.
The journey itself involved travelling into Sweden, where her two year old daughter, Fanny and her nurse were left behind while she went into Norway to set about the legal wrangling she’s been sent to sort out. Coming back, she then meets up with her baby, travels through Denmark and into Germany where she took a boat back to England from Hamburg.
Sweden she finds a worn down, with lots of people merely existing, an impression that strengthens after she returns from Norway, which she finds to be more independent. Worse that Sweden is Denmark, especially Copenhagen, which had burnt down months before and was not looking its best but, for Wollstonecraft, the worst place she visits is Hamburg. It’s a town where the nouveaux riche and the fallen French aristos mix, though that’s not the problem, it’s the money-grabbing narrow-mindedness of the place. I found it funny read of Wollstonecraft talking about the Scandinavian countries as places on their way out of barbarism as they’re now ofte considered as models of statehood.
She mixes with people, very few of which she can properly communicate with and spends as much time as she can outside by herself, admiring a field “enamelled with the sweetest wild flowers” and a great many impressive rocks. She finds it hard to be social, not only can she speak none of the languages, she doesn’t enjoy the forms of entertainment her hosts have for her, eating very large dinners in stuffy, closed rooms accompanied by lots of booze and smoking. She also takes up rowing, which gives her plenty of fresh air and time to think, “my train of thinking kept time, as it were, with the oars.”
Many of her thoughts are about, “my favourite subject of contemplation, the future improvement of the world.” She has a really interesting view of progress, in general it was extremely positive, convinced that ‘civilisation is a blessing.’ She even says that “The increasing population of the earth must necessarily tend to its improvement, as the means of existence are multiplied by improvements.” She sees this is particularly true in the case of women, where she sees greater cultural and social capital having a trickle-down effect and raising the possibilities for women above mere domestic drudges.
She’s also worried about progress, she lambasts the avariciousness of early capitalism and the way it can narrow minds to anything but money. At one point she worries about the future when humans have used up all resources and even moved into the wildernesses of Norway. She admits it’s a silly thing to worry about that may not come to pass for thousands of years, something which was very uncomfortable to this reader two-hundred and twenty years later living in a time where her fear could take place in the next eighty years.
As she says, “common minds rarely break through general rules,” and Mary Wollstonecraft clearly has no common mind. She dismisses the notion of national characteristics, especially the notion of them being formed by weather or landscape but shaped by social systems. She also sees this simplification of complex systems to be an easy cop-out for writers who should do better.
“The most essential service, I presume that authors could render to society, would be to promote enquiry and discussion, instead of making those dogmatical assertions which only appear calculated to gird the human mind round with imaginary circles.”
Of course, one of her big interests is the life of women in the countries she visits, apologising for, “still harping on the same subject you will exclaim- How can I avoid it when most of the struggles of my eventful life have been occasioned by the oppressed state of my sex.”
One of the other interesting little ideas is one she has about how “the preservation of the species, not the individual, that is the design of the Deity,” - a very interesting notion that points to Darwin.
The thing that makes the book really spark, is the sense of vulnerability. There are many luminous, numinous moments in the book but there’s always a sense that they’re moments of joy that bring light in a bedrock of distress. She’s so aware of her own passions, declaring that she “must love and admire with warmth, or I sink into sadness,” and that she has to “catch pleasure pleasure on the wing - I may be melancholy tomorrow.” This is an author who’d tried to kill herself mere weeks before writing the book, and would try again shortly after.
“How frequently has melancholy and even misanthropy taken possession of me, when the world has disgusted me, and friends have proved unkind. O have then considered myself as a particle broken off from the grand mass of mankind; - I was alone, till some involuntary sympathetic emotion, like the attraction of adhesion, made me feel that I was still a part of a mighty whole, from which I could not sever myself.”
The Oxford World’s Classics edition of this book also has excerpts of the genuine letters she wrote to Gilbert Imlay as the trip progressed. From these letters it’s clear that the journey was much harder and Wollstonecraft’s emotional pain much stronger than the published book shows. It’s clear that Imlay is not answering letters and if he is, he’s replying in simple business terms. She spends many of these letters describing her pain and demanding that Imlay either properly commits to her and his daughter, or makes a certain decision to leave them which he doesn’t seem to do. She goes through the pain of breakup, sometimes excusing Imlay,
“my imagination is perpetually shading your defects,” and other times relishing his being out of her life as, “this heart is worthy of the bliss its feelings anticipate.” Those real letters are a difficult read, showing genuine pain that does enter into the published work but in a way that elevates that book beyond ordinary travelogue.
The title may not suggest much but the book is certainly worth a read.
April 19, 2014
I skimmed most of this book as it isn't a travel journal as I thought it would be. These are letters that were written while Mary Wollstonecraft was in Scandinavia, and while a lot of the content is about the places she visited, there are a lot of tangents on various topics and reminiscences of stories or episodes that happened elsewhere. Also, the last two or three letters weren't even written from Scandinavia. You would learn more about Mary Wollstonecraft than about Scandinavia from reading this collection of letters, which is obviously absolutely fine, it is just not what I was looking for.
September 27, 2021
Very interesting to read a direct report from a woman travelling more or less by herself in Sweden, Norway and Denmark in 1795. Most of the time was spent in Norway so I was a little disappointed that there wasn't much about Sweden - mainly from Göteborg and Bohuslän.
Her views on the situation for women, both in the places where she travelled and for women in general were very interesting.
Sad to realize that she died only two years later when giving birth to her second daughter, also named Mary, later Mary Shelley and the author of Frankenstein.
Her views on the situation for women, both in the places where she travelled and for women in general were very interesting.
Sad to realize that she died only two years later when giving birth to her second daughter, also named Mary, later Mary Shelley and the author of Frankenstein.
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