Project Gutenberg's Mary Wollstonecraft, by Elizabeth Robins Pennell

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Title: Mary Wollstonecraft

Author: Elizabeth Robins Pennell

Release Date: September 29, 2007 [EBook #22800]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT.

BY

ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL.

BOSTON:
ROBERTS BROTHERS.
1890.

_Copyright, 1884_,
BY ROBERTS BROTHERS.

UNIVERSITY PRESS:
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE.

PREFACE.

Comparatively little has been written about the life of MARY
WOLLSTONECRAFT. The two authorities upon the subject are Godwin and Mr.
C. Kegan Paul. In writing the following Biography I have relied chiefly
upon the Memoir written by the former, and the Life of Godwin and
Prefatory Memoir to the Letters to Imlay of the latter. I have endeavored
to supplement the facts recorded in these books by a careful analysis of
Mary Wollstonecraft's writings and study of the period in which she
lived.

I must here express my thanks to Mr. Garnett, of the British Museum, and
to Mr. C. Kegan Paul, for the kind assistance they have given me in my
work. To the first named of these gentlemen I am indebted for the loan of
a manuscript containing some particulars of Mary Wollstonecraft's last
illness which have never yet appeared in print, and to Mr. Paul for the
gift, as well as the loan, of several important books.

E. R. P.
LONDON, August, 1884.

CONTENTS.

Page

INTRODUCTION 1

Chapter

I. CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH. 1759-1778 12

II. FIRST YEARS OF WORK. 1778-1785 30

III. LIFE AS GOVERNESS. 1786-1788 60

IV. LITERARY LIFE. 1788-1791 85

V. LITERARY WORK. 1788-1791 117

VI. "VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN" 136

VII. VISIT TO PARIS. 1792-1793 171

VIII. LIFE WITH IMLAY. 1793-1794 198

IX. IMLAY'S D