Mary Wollstonecraft Biography: Mary Wollstonecraft was a British author, philosopher, and supporter of women’s rights who lived from 1759 to 1797. During her life, Wollstonecraft was known more for her strange relationships than for her writing, but now she is known as one of the first female philosophers. People often say that her life and works were essential to the feminist movement. Mary Wollstonecraft Biography.
Wollstonecraft wrote novels, treatizes, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children’s book in her brief career. She is best known for her book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), in which she argues that women are not naturally inferior to men but only appear to be so because of their lack of education. She envisions a social order founded on reason where men and women are treated as rational beings. Mary Wollstonecraft Biography.
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After Wollstonecraft died, her husband published a book about her life called Memoir (1798). This book showed how she lived unusually and hurt her image for nearly a century. But as the feminist movement grew in the 20th century, Wollstonecraft’s fight for equal rights for women and her criticisms of traditional femininity became more critical.
Wollstonecraft had two ill-fated affairs, with Henry Fuseli and Gilbert Imlay (with whom she had a daughter, Fanny Imlay), before marrying the philosopher William Godwin, a forefather of the anarchist movement. She died at the age of 38, leaving behind several unfinished manuscripts. Her second daughter, Mary Shelley, was born eleven days after her death. Shelley would become an accomplished writer and the author of Frankenstein.
Mary Wollstonecraft Biography
| Date of birth | April 27, 1759 |
|---|---|
| Birthplace | Spitalfields, London |
| Parents | Father’s behavior |
| Number of siblings | 7 |
| Family’s financial situation | Became financially unstable due to father’s speculative projects |
| Wollstonecraft’s inheritance | Father compelled her to turn it over to him |
| Father’s behaviour | Violent, he would beat his wife in drunken rages |
| Wollstonecraft’s role in the family | A maternal role for sisters, Everina and Eliza |
| Wollstonecraft’s actions for Eliza | Persuaded her to leave her husband and infant due to postpartum depression |
| First important friendship | Jane Arden |
| Intellectual atmosphere | In Arden household |
| Emotional possessiveness | Expressed towards Arden |
| Second important friendship | Fanny (Frances) Blood |
| Wollstonecraft’s job | Lady’s companion to Sarah Dawson in Bath |
| Wollstonecraft’s return home | To care for her dying mother |
| Wollstonecraft’s living situation after her mother’s death | Moved in with the Bloods |
| Wollstonecraft’s Dream with Blood | To live in a female utopia |
| The school set up by Wollstonecraft, her sisters, and Blood | In Newington Green, a Dissenting community |
| Blood’s marriage and move | To Lisbon, Portugal, with her husband, Hugh Skeys |
| Blood’s health | It became worse when pregnant, despite the move |
| Wollstonecraft’s departure from school | To nurse Blood |
| Blood’s death | Devastated Wollstonecraft |
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1785 | Blood dies; Wollstonecraft becomes governess to the Kingsborough family in Ireland |
| 1788 | Wollstonecraft publishes Original Stories from Real Life |
| 1787 | Wollstonecraft decides to pursue a career as an author |
| 1790 | Wollstonecraft publishes A Vindication of the Rights of Men |
| 1792 | Wollstonecraft publishes A Vindication of the Rights of Woman; Talleyrand-Périgord visits Wollstonecraft, and she advocates for girls’ education in France. |
| Wollstonecraft’s relationship with Henry Fuseli ends; she travels to France. |
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| December 1792 | Wollstonecraft left for Paris. |
| January 1793 | Wollstonecraft arrived in Paris. |
| February 1793 | France declared war on Britain. |
| March 1793 | The Committee of Public Safety came to power. |
| April 1793 | All foreigners were forbidden to leave France. |
| October 16, 1793 | Marie Antoinette was guillotined. |
| October 31, 1793 | Most of the Girondin leaders were guillotined. |
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