From School Library Journal
Grade 6-10-With careful documentation and a clear, succinct style, Miller offers an appealing, anecdotal portrait of a founding member of the women's rights movement. Victimized by a father whose "bad habits" eroded family finances, and exposed to the gender inequities of 18th-century British society, Wollstonecraft sought independence through work as a lady's companion, a school teacher, and a governess. Her experiences acquainted her with the idle, superficial pursuits of wealthy women and the inadequacies of education for girls. She found her voice at last, however, in writing and published several works, including Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1786) and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). She clung tenaciously to her liberal, egalitarian opinions despite an eyewitness look at the bloody French Revolution and two love affairs that challenged her disparaging view of sexual love and marriage. Wollstonecraft's strengths and weaknesses are presented with insight, analysis, and compassion, and she emerges as a complex, controversial, persevering, and influential advocate of women's rights. Teens will enjoy the account of this progressive thinker's life.
Gerry Larson, Durham Magnet Center, Durham, NC
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Gerry Larson, Durham Magnet Center, Durham, NC
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
She called marriage "legal prostitution," and when her A Vindication of the Rights of Women, was published in 1792, Horace Walpole responded by calling her a "hyena in petticoats." A noteworthy and highly controversial intellect of Enlightenment society, British writer Wollstonecraft pursued ideas with passion. The grueling poverty and inequality she saw in society horrified her. The oldest daughter of a struggling family that preferred its firstborn son, she tried to be protector to her younger siblings and abused mother, and was continuously frustrated by the lack of independence and education afforded women. She tried her hand at teaching, editing, and domestic service, and found great solace with the spirited independent thinkers who questioned the order of the day, among them publisher Joseph Johnson, who brought out her fiction and encouraged her to write about the French Revolution, which she did in 1791. Miller's lively biography of this most interesting woman makes an excellent resource for students studying the women's movement or modern history. Source notes; chronology; bibliography. Anne O'Malley
