Vindication: A Novel [Paperback]

Frances Sherwood (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1995

The story of Mary Wollstonecraft, a pioneer feminist and author of the radical classic A Vindication of the Rights of Women, is an impassioned, beautifully written portrait of a remarkable 18th-century woman with 20th-century sensibilities--historical fiction at its most gripping and convincing. Author reading tour. Radio news features.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This virtuosic novel about the life of Mary Wollstonecraft is compelling both in its evocation of 18th-century culture and its relevance to modern feminism.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Publication of A Vindication of the Rights of Women in 1792 made Mary Wollstonecraft the most famous woman in Europe. She traveled to Paris to observe the French Revolution but arrived just in time to witness the terror. She had a child out of wedlock and was abandoned by the father, attempted suicide, and spent months chained to the wall in a lunatic asylum. She was on intimate terms with leading intellectuals of the day, including William Blake, Thomas Paine, and William Godwin, with whom she had a daughter, Mary, who later became the author of Frankenstein. What's most remarkable about this fictional biography is that it manages to touch upon so many trendy topics--child abuse, mental illness, homosexuality, and drug addiction--without departing from the basic facts. Sherwood emphasizes the contemporary relevance of Wollstonecraft's life but keeps the book historically grounded with abundant 18th-century detail. This first novel is recommended for most collections. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 1/93.
- Edward B. St. John, Loyola Law Sch. Lib., Los Angeles
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (January 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140236686
• ISBN-13: 978-0140236682
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,443,370 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Imaginative, a page-turner with intelligence and wit., September 12, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: Vindication: A Novel (Paperback)

Frances Sherwood masterfully retells the life and times of Mary Wollstonecraft. Friend to William Blake, Henry Fuseli and other artists, her biography is here given distinctly modern treatment. A fascinating woman, she witnessed the French Revolution, spent weeks locked up in infamous Bedlam, and had a series of disastrous love affairs. Sherwood's recreation of 18th-century London draws the reader in completely. Once started, you will find it difficult to put this book down

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars (4.5)A thoughtful assessment of a tortured life, February 14, 2004

By 

Luan Gaines "luansos" (Dana Point, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Vindication: A Novel (Paperback)

A thoughtful assessment of a tortured life

Sherwood's touch is pitch perfect, bringing to life 18th Century England, days of abject poverty and the insurmountable chasm between poor and wealthy. Mary Wollstonecraft is born into a family that lives on the edge, everything meager, from scarce provisions to scarcer emotions. This familial absence of love mirrors the lack of all in a family defined by misery. Mary's childhood is a nightmare of drunkenness and depravity visited upon the girl and her helpless siblings, the father a drunkard and the mother his willing victim.

Mary's awakening as a woman is much delayed, albeit inevitable, having wasted so many years trapped by dire circumstances. Her attractiveness exponential to her fearless intelligence, Mary's writing consumes her, yet is a separate agony from the one regarding the men in her life. Predictably, Mary is haunted by childhood abuse, insecure in her dealings with men. In a beautiful blend of fact and fiction, Wollstonecraft experiences firsthand the horrors of Bedlam, the day-to-day insanity of the French revolution and the Age of Enlightenment. This novel is not frivolous; the crafting of Vindication is superb, but painful: nothing in this woman's life is without difficulty. Although her childhood experiences shadow the rest of her days, Mary's intellect is intransigent. Through her suffering comes an intimate knowledge of women's roles in a world that inevitably restricts their choices.

Wollstonecraft's seminal work, A Vindication of the Rights of Women, published in 1792, is a logical extension of the Enlightenment's determination of the rights of man, as seen through the eyes of a woman. Her publisher entertains a salon with contemporaries like William Blake, William Godwin, Thomas Paine and, of course, Mary Wollstonecraft, the equal of them all. Yet Mary is dogged by a constant discontent, " a kind of celestial poorhouse overseen by Father Time and monitored by Mother May I." Eventually, Mary becomes more attentive to the energetic rhetoric of the weekly discussions.

Sherwood focuses on daily life, shrewd and unflinching. Each of Mary's foolish romantic fantasies is tempered with the feral details of life in 18th Century Europe. Although the luminaries that are Mary's contemporaries wax poetic on the nature of the universe, reality is actually quite tedious. The author's consummate skill is obvious in the quality of her characters, especially Mary, her complexities, questioning spirit and drive to succeed. Accomplishing a prodigious feat, Sherwood's Mary Wollstonecraft comes alive in the pages of Vindication, correcting, arguing and searching for a sense of comfort that she will never know. The rendering of this tortured life is exquisite, determined and inspirational. Luan Gaines/2004.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a great novelized biography of an early feminist, April 6, 2006

By 

Sammy Madison (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Vindication: A Novel (Paperback)

I knew from history class that Mary Wollstonecraft was an early feminist and the mother of Mary Shelley, the author of "Frankenstein". I had no idea what an incredibly eventful and meaningful life she led until I read this book. Wollstonecraft's childhood was very edgy and anxiety-producing, with an alcoholic and abusive father, and a mother whose own perversity played to his abuse. The reader gets the impression that the mother has to participate in the disfunction to keep a roof over her head. Her loving paternal grandfather, who knew how unreliable his son was, left a will taking care of both his grandaughters and grandson. Wollstonecraft's brother who had been a co-sufferer with his two sisters in the traumatic setting of their childhood, betrayed them by challenging the will in court. He succeeded in overturing the non-traditional will so Wollstonecraft and her sister were left indigent in spite of her grandfather's wishes. In that era, a woman's only option for supporting herself was marriage, witness the desperation of Wollstonecraft's mother. A freethinker, Wollstonecraft continued to walk a tightrope all through life, getting involved sexually with several intellectual leading lights of her age (with results ranging from embarrassing and frustrating to disasterous, just like nowadays), bearing a child out of wedlock, and always lacking in any kind of security in spite of her own prominence in the intellectual arena. The effects of her individualism even resulted in imprisonment in the infamous asylum "Bedlam". This is the amazingly written story of a very interesting woman from history. If you read this, you will definitely not be bored, and you will see what important changes feminism has brought about in a relatively short period of time thanks to people like Mary Wollstonecraft.