Full Description
Mary Wollstonecraft wrote these two novellas at the beginning and end of her years of writing and political activism. Though written at different times, they explore some of the same issues: ideals of femininity as celebrated by the cult of sensibility, the unequal education of women, and domestic subjugation. Mary counters the contemporary trend of weak, emotional heroines with the story of an intelligent and creative young woman who educates herself through her close friendships with men and women. Darker and more overtly feminist, The Wrongs of Woman is set in an insane asylum, where a young woman has been wrongly imprisoned by her husband.
By presenting the novellas in light of such texts as Wollstonecraft's letters, her polemical and educational prose, similar works by other feminists and political reformists, the literature of sentiment, and contemporary medical texts, this edition encourages an appreciation of the complexity and sophistication of Wollstonecraft's writing goals as a radical feminist in the 1790s.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Works Cited and Consulted
Mary Wollstonecraft: A Brief Chronology
A Note on the Text
Mary, A Fiction
The Wrongs of Woman, or Maria
Appendix A: Relevant Texts by and on Mary Wollstonecraft
From Wollstonecraft, Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787)
From Wollstonecraft, "Cave of Fancy" (composed 1787; published 1798)
From Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790)
From Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
William Godwin, "Preface" to the Letters in Posthumous Works (1798)
From William Godwin, Memoirs of Wollstonecraft (1798)
Appendix B: The Political Context: Education, Human Rights, and the French Revolution
From Catharine Macaulay, Letters on Education (1790)
From Edmund Burke, Reflections on the French Revolution (1790)
From Thomas Paine, Rights of Man (1791)
From William Godwin, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793)
Appendix C: The Novel of Sentiment, the Woman of Sensibility, and the Gothic
From Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Émile, ou, de l'Éducation (1762)
From Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774)
From Anna Lætitia Barbauld, "To a Lady, With Some Painted Flowers" (1792)
From William Godwin, Caleb Williams (1794)
From William Beckford, Elegant Enthusiast (1796)
Appendix D: Education versus Nature: Phrenology, Associationism, and Nerve Theory
From William Perfect, Cases of Insanity (1785)
From Johann Caspar Lavater, Essays on Physiognomy (1789)
From Joseph Priestley on Hartley's Associationism (1790)
Select Bibliography
