The Author

Mary Wollstonecraft, early feminist writer and notable for her ideas on the part of education in woman's oppression, was born in 1759. After an unsettled childhood she became a teacher. In 1784 she opened a school in London together with her sister. In 1786 she went to Ireland as a governess to Lord Kingsborough's children. After her return in 1788 she spent some years writing for the London publisher James Johnson. In 1792 she went to Paris, where she met the American writer Imlay, by whom she had a daughter. In 1795 she returned to London, where Imlay's neclect drove her to two suicide attempts. In March 1797 she married the writer and philosopher William Godwin. A few months later she died of puerperal fever, after the birth of her second daughter, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, the future author of Frankenstein and wife of the poet Percy B. Shelley.

The Work

Works published during Wollstonecraft's lifetime:

Thoughts on the Education of Daughters: with Reflections on Female Conduct, in the More Important Duties of Life
   (1787)
Mary: A Fiction
   (1788)
Original Stories from Real Life with Conversations Calculated to Regulate the Affections and Form the Mind to Truth and Goodness
   (1788)
A Vindication of the Rights of Men
   (1790)
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
   (1792)
An Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution and the Effect it has Produced in Europe
   (1794)
Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark
   (1796)
On Poetry, and Our Relish for the Beauties of Nature
   (1797)

Posthumous Works published by William Godwin:

The Wrongs of Woman; or Maria. A Fragment
   (1798)
Lessons
   (1798)
Letters to Gilbert Imlay
   (1798)
Letter Introductory to a Series of Letters on the Present Character of the French Nation
   (1798)
Fragment of Letters on the Management of Infants
   (1798)
Letters to Mr Johnson, Bookseller in St Paul's Churchyard
   (1798)
Extract of the Cave of Fancy, a Tale
   (1798)
On Poetry and our Relish for the Beauties of Nature
   (1798)

Appendix

Mary Wollstonecraft's homepage
Sources/Colophon