A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and over 360,000 other books are available for Amazon Kindle � Amazon�s new wireless reading device. Learn more

Quantity:

Express Checkout with PayPhrase

What's this? | Create PayPhrase

More Buying Choices

100 used & new from $1.04

Have one to sell? Sell yours here

Share with Friends

Share your own customer images

Look inside this book

Start reading A Vindication of the Rights of Woman on your Kindle in under a minute. Don�t have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here.

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Norton Critical Editions) (Paperback)

~ (Author), Carol H. Poston (Editor)

5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

Price:	$14.61 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
	o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

Want it delivered Wednesday, November 18? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details

20 new from $4.99 80 used from $1.04

Formats		Amazon Price	New from	Used from
Kindle Edition $3.99 Available for download now. Published July 1, 2004	Kindle Edition, July 1, 2004	$3.99	--	--
Hardcover Available from these sellers. Published May 31, 1987	Hardcover, May 31, 1987	--	$26.29	$11.42
Paperback $14.61 In Stock. Published October 16, 1987	Paperback, October 16, 1987	$14.61	$4.99	$1.04

There is a newer edition of this item:

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Third Edition) (Norton Critical Editions) 5.0 out of 5 stars (1)
$12.50

In Stock.

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

	78% buy the item featured on this page: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Norton Critical Editions) 5.0 out of 5 stars (3) $14.61
	9% buy A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Penguin Classics) 4.8 out of 5 stars (5) $6.15
	7% buy A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Third Edition) (Norton Critical Editions) 5.0 out of 5 stars (1) $12.50
	4% buy A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Dover Thrift Editions) 4.8 out of 5 stars (6) $3.00

Explore similar items

Frequently Bought Together

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Beyond Liberalism and Fundamentalism: How Modern and Postmodern Philosophy Set the Theological Agenda (Rockwell Lecture Series)

by Nancey C. Murphy

4.1 out of 5 stars (7) $31.34

Philosophy for Understanding Theology, Second Edition

by Diogenes Allen

4.8 out of 5 stars (8) $19.77

Primary Readings in Philosophy for Understanding Theology

by Eric O. Springsted, Diogenes Allen

3.5 out of 5 stars (4) $25.46

The Prelude: 1799, 1805, 1850 (Norton Critical Editions)

by Stephen Charles Gill

4.2 out of 5 stars (4) $18.28

Coleridge's Poetry and Prose (Norton Critical Edition)

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

5.0 out of 5 stars (1) $17.20

› Explore similar items

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

The First Edition of this Norton Critical Edition was both an acclaimed classroom text and ahead of its time. This Second Edition offers the best in Wollstonecraft scholarship and criticism since 1976, providing the ideal means for studying the first feminist document written in English. The text of the work remains that of Wollstonecraft's second edition of 1792, for scholarship has vindicated that choice. The annotations have been greatly expanded.

Backgrounds documents more fully the early concern for women's education, with important extracts from the relevant works of John Locke and Mary Astell, as well as three more of Catherine Macaulay's influential "Letters on Education."

A new section, The Wollstonecraft Debate, provides a wide spectrum of opinions about the woman herself, from the nastiness of Richard Polwhele to the adulation of William Blake, balanced by the cool intelligence of George Eliot and Virginia Woolf.

Criticism contains essays by Emma Rauschenbusch-Clough, Carolyn W. Korsmeyer, R. M. Janes, Elissa S. Guralnick, Moira Ferguson and Janet Todd, Mitzi Myers, and Mary Poovey.

A Chronology of Wollstonecraft's life and a Selected Bibliography are also included. .

About the Author

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) first achieved fame for her A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), in which she extended the radical idea of the "rights of man" to women and laid the groundwork for modern feminism.

Product Details

Paperback: 384 pages
Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co.; Second Edition edition (October 17, 1987)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0393955729
ISBN-13: 978-0393955729
Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5 x 0.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #399,881 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

› Visit Amazon's Mary Wollstonecraft Page

Look Inside This Book

Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

(What's this?)

Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.

feminist philosophy(4)

feminist classics(3)

norton critical editions(2)

gender studies(1)

women(1)

Agree with these tags?

Customer Reviews

3 Reviews

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

Average Customer Review

5.0 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)

Share your thoughts with other customers:

Create your own review

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Anthology With Every Angle, April 20, 2003

By	S. Smeltzer (San Diego, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book has Wollstonecraft's A VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN and a through Background, Debate and Criticism section. This book gives one everything needed to understand Wollstonecraft's personality strenghths and weaknesses according to authors from her time; a complete debate on the subject of women's rights from multiple authors (from different time periods); and an intense review by serveral other authors (within the last 25 years) on Wollstonecraft's success/failure. Every article in the book has been published independently of this book. This work also contains several journal articles.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Classic, June 20, 2006

By	Isabelle Guiang (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews

A passionate document in eloquent prose. Mary Wollstonecraft was a terrific polemicist and this is her most brilliant work, a deeply moving diatribe against the repression of women. I dare any man to read it and remain unmoved! This is a true classic.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

5.0 out of 5 stars First Feminist, October 30, 2008

By	Michael A Neulander "Political Philosophy" (VA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

This was required reading for a graduate course in the Humanities. Wollstonecraft is not easy to read however, she makes a compelling argument. Mary Wollstonecraft viewed the institution of marriage simply as legal prostitution. She believed this to be the case for several reasons. First, the marriage laws in Britain at the time gave men legal rights over their wives including their property. The law also gave men custody of their children in event of divorce, and a woman could not even obtain a divorce without their husband's consent. For women divorce meant having to leave everything of importance in their lives behind. Thus, Wollstonecraft observed that Britain's laws left women in the unenviable position of being treated as mere chattel by their husbands. Second, Wollstonecraft argued that women's downtrodden position in society was not the cause of religious or moral teachings. She was emphatic in her assessment that it was women's denial of the same educational opportunities that men received that made them seem weak and inferior to men. Finally, she believed marriage only chained women to a life of drudgery in the home.

Armed with this information, Wollstonecraft set out to propose in her book A Vindication of the Rights of Women the idea, that equal education for women was the only remedy for this grave injustice perpetrated against them, and education for women would actually strengthen the institution of marriage. She made several prescient arguments to support this idea. First, Wollstonecraft believed schoolchildren needed the contact and interaction with other schoolchildren to develop properly. So, she argued against Britain's system of elitist education, especially its private schools and boarding schools. She advocated for the creation of national public schools, funded by the state, and attended by children from the entire socio-economic strata. Second, she thought it was imperative that both boys and girls must be educated together. The reason Wollstonecraft believed in coeducation, was that when both boys and girls get to know one another from an early age they would in turn, build friendships, and learn to respect one another. Therefore, when women get married, they will be able to serve as companions to their husbands and not just as trophy wives or sexual objects. "Nay, marriage will never be held sacred till women, by being brought up with men, are prepared to be their companions rather than their mistresses." Third, Wollstonecraft asked the question, how society could expect mothers to rear healthy boys capable of functioning as confident and productive men in society if their mothers, who raised them, were uneducated. She was horrified to think of the damage already done to children by uneducated, weak-minded mothers. Wollstonecraft articulates in beautiful fashion her argument for the need to educate women in the following quote. "If marriage be the cement of society, mankind should all be educated after the same model, or the intercourse of the sexes will never deserve the name of fellowship, nor will women ever fulfill the peculiar duties of their sex." This argument only enhances women's roles as wives and mothers. Finally, Wollstonecraft argued that the implementation of her educational reforms would prove to be a key element leading to the improvement of the institution of marriage in particular, and for family life in general. "Contending for the rights of women, my main argument is built on this simple principle, that if she be not prepared by education to become the companion of man, she will stop the progress of knowledge and virtue."

Recommended reading for anyone interested in history, psychology, philosophy, and feminism. cal science, history and, psychology.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 3 customer reviews...

.jsOffDisplayBlock { display: block; } .jsOffDisplayInline { display: inline; } .jsOffVisibility { visibility: visible; } .jsOnDisplayBlock { display: none; } .jsOnDisplayNoneBlock { display: block; } .jsOnDisplayNoneInline { display: inline; } .jsOnDisplayInline { display: none; } .jsOnVisibility { visibility: hidden; } .jqOnDisplayBlock { display: none; } .jqOnDisplayInline { display: none; } .jqOnVisibility { visibility: hidden; } .jqOnDisplayNoneBlock { display: block; } .jqOnDisplayNoneInline { display: inline; }

Customer Discussions

This product's forum

Discussion	Replies	Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight

Start a new discussion

Topic:

First post:

Receive e-mail when new posts are made

Prompts for sign-in

Guidelines

Active discussions in related forums

Discussion	Replies	Latest Post
women Do men sacrifice themselves too much for women?	11	1 hour ago
women Unequality in the relationships looks department?	8	2 hours ago
women Do Virgins sacrifice themselves too much for the Aztec Priests???	11	7 hours ago
textbook Textbooks for Kindle DX?	62	12 hours ago
textbook Anyone need psychology testbook- trying to sell a used copy	2	2 days ago
current events The Blood of Tyrants	0	4 days ago
current events Reference to homosexuality	42	6 days ago