Political Writings -OS [Paperback]

Mary Wollstonecraft (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0802074456 | ISBN-13: 978-0802074454 | Publication Date: May 1993

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-97) is increasingly recognised not only as one of the most influential thinkers on women's rights, but also as an incisive and observant writer on politics, education and social issues. Wollstonecraft wrote her first polemical work, A Vindication of the Rights of Men, in 1790 in response to Edmund Burke's conservative Reflections on the Revolution in France. It gave Wollstonecraft recognition as a writer and helped to create a larger audience for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, written during the following year. In this controversial essay, one of the first systematic arguments for female emancipation based on the idea of human rights, she contends that any general improvement of society demands that men and women be treated as equals. An Historical and Moral View of the French Revolution tries to sustain the political convictions of the two Vindications in the context of the bloody events of the later Revolution. Although she remained firmly committed to the principles of the early Revolution, her disappointment at their practice is evident in this selection of her writings.

Editorial Reviews

Review

`... this edition does away with the idea of M. W. as Tom Paine in Skirts. Her mind is deepter and richer than his; her transmutation of the turmoil of her experiences during the revolutionary period in France is remarkable.' The Observer --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Janet Todd is Professor of English Literature at the University of East Anglia.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 411 pages
• Publisher: University of Toronto Press (May 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802074456
• ISBN-13: 978-0802074454
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,460,620 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars The Thinking Woman's Woman, January 18, 2012

By 

J. Stensrude (Houston, Texas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and A Vindication of the Rights of Men (Paperback)

Nearly two hundred years before the forceful flowering of feminism in Western countries, Mary Wollstonecraft penned two important essays (both in the form of letters of protest to the writings of male thinkers of the time), one setting forth her protest against social injustices of her time, and the other declaring the intellectual equality of women and setting forth in detail the actions needed to correct the unfair status of women. The complete text of both Vindications are included in this edition. It is of interest to note that she did not manage her personal romantic affairs as wisely as her essays suggest she would have liked. She had one daughter out of wedlock and died giving birth to another after her marriage to William Godwin. This second daughter, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, married political radical and poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Even as the daughter of the two most famous radicals of the time and as the wife of another, Mary Shelley became, in the long term, more famous than any of them as the author of the novel Frankenstein.