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Her book, Thoughts on the Education of Daughters, was published in 1787, when she is just 28 years old. At the same time, she took a position as governess to an aristocratic family in Ireland.

Within a year, Mary had infused her revolutionary ideas about the place of women into the eldest daughter of the Kingsborough family, and in the process, alienated the mother, a lady whose mind was largely occupied with social concerns. Mary left this employment and returned to England where she decided, with the support of her publisher, to try living by her pen.

In the next few years, she turned out reviews and translations for the journal, Analytical Review. Since she was almost entirely self-taught, her determination to learn both French and German must have been considerable. In 1790, A Vindication of the Rights of Men was published as a republican response to Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France, in which he took the side of the monarchists.

Wollstonecraft lived during the period of the American Revolution, and was friend to many in England whose sympathies did not lie with George III. Her publisher, Joseph Johnson, was an intimate of Benjamin Franklin, and her literary circle included John Adams (and wife Abigail), and Thomas Paine. She was an ardent supporter of democratic principles, and an articulate spokesperson for the rights of women. In 1792, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman was published, and Mary, still a staunch believer in the French Revolution, moved to Paris.

It was in Paris that she fell in love with Gilbert Imlay, an American adventurer (and probable spy). Their affair was passionate and tender, in the midst of the worst of the Reign of Terror. In order to protect her, Imlay obtained documents from the American embassy identifying her as his wife, and they moved out of the city, to LeHavre. A daughter was born to them, and Mary promptly named her Fanny.

The author has done a great deal of research into the doings of Gilbert Imlay and other Americans who were in France, England and Germany during this period. It was a time rife with intrigue and speculation, and Gilbert Imlay was very much involved in all that went on. His frequent absences from home weighed hard on Mary, and she began to suspect (correctly) that he was involved with other women. In 1795, she returned to England, in hopes of setting up a home with Imlay. He soon dispatched her to Norway as his representative to settle business claims involving the loss of a “treasure ship” he and others had smuggled out of France. Mary’s trip took her from Norway to Sweden to Denmark, and eventually to Hamburg, at that time a hotbed of questionable enterprise and shady dealing.

Upon her return to London, she confronted Imlay with his infidelities, and then attempted suicide by leaping from a bridge into the Thames. Rescued about 200 yards downstream, she eventually began to emerge from her depression, with the help of friends. During this time, she wrote Letters Written During A Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark.

She renewed her acquaintance with William Godwin, an atheist and anarchistic philosopher, who was a member of the London intellectual circle she frequented before going to France. It was he who worked hard to pull her out of depression, and they slid slowly into an affair. Despite the fact that he was absolutely anti-marriage, when their relationship resulted in pregnancy, they did marry quietly. He became very fond of Imlay’s daughter, Fanny, who now took his name and was known as Fanny Godwin. It looked as if the three of them had found some sort of safe harbor – but Mary died, aged 38, of an infection sustained during the birth of her daughter, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (who grew up to marry Percy Bysshe Shelley, and later write Frankenstein).

Page Three of Vindication; Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince>>

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