London, J. Johnson, 1792
Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman was a ground-breaking work of literature which still resonates in feminism and human rights movements of today.
"Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) wrote the book in part as a reaction to Edmund Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution, published in late 1790. Burke saw the French Revolution as a movement which would inevitably fail, as society needed traditional structures such as inherited positions and property in order to strengthen it. Wollstonecraft's initial response was to write A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790), a rebuttal of Burke that argued in favour of parliamentary reform, and stating that religious and civil liberties were part of a man's birth right, with corruption caused in the main by ignorance. This argument for men's rights wasn't unique â Thomas Paine published his Rights of Man in 1791, also arguing against Burke â but Wollstonecraft proceeded to go one step further, and, for the first time, a book was published that argued for women's rights to be on the same footing as men's.
The reaction to Vindication in Wollstonecraft's lifetime was positive in her own liberal intellectual dissenting circle, but otherwise very negative. Horace Walpole notably referred to her in one of his letters as a 'hyena in petticoats'. In 1798, after Wollstonecraft's death, her husband William Godwin published her memoirs which he had written as part of his grieving process. In these he was open and truthful in his description not only of his own premarital relationship with Mary, but also about her previous relationship with Gilbert Imlay and the birth of their illegitimate child, Fanny Imlay. The scandal this created meant that Wollstonecraft's literary legacy was disregarded, and when, many years later, Fanny Imlay committed suicide as a result of an unhappy relationship, and Mary Godwin (Wollstonecraft's daughter with William Godwin) eloped with Percy Bysshe Shelley, society was quick to blame Wollstonecraft's feminist principles." - (www.bl.uk/collection-items/mary-wollstonecraft-a-vindication-of-the-rights-of-woman)
First edition. 8vo., xix,[1], 452 pp., volume 1 (all published), a little light browning, mainly marginal, small blindstamp to title, accession number to verso, modern calf gilt, a very good copy.
"Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) wrote the book in part as a reaction to Edmund Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution, published in late 1790. Burke saw the French Revolution as a movement which would inevitably fail, as society needed traditional structures such as inherited positions and property in order to strengthen it. Wollstonecraft's initial response was to write A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790), a rebuttal of Burke that argued in favour of parliamentary reform, and stating that religious and civil liberties were part of a man's birth right, with corruption caused in the main by ignorance. This argument for men's rights wasn't unique â Thomas Paine published his Rights of Man in 1791, also arguing against Burke â but Wollstonecraft proceeded to go one step further, and, for the first time, a book was published that argued for women's rights to be on the same footing as men's.
The reaction to Vindication in Wollstonecraft's lifetime was positive in her own liberal intellectual dissenting circle, but otherwise very negative. Horace Walpole notably referred to her in one of his letters as a 'hyena in petticoats'. In 1798, after Wollstonecraft's death, her husband William Godwin published her memoirs which he had written as part of his grieving process. In these he was open and truthful in his description not only of his own premarital relationship with Mary, but also about her previous relationship with Gilbert Imlay and the birth of their illegitimate child, Fanny Imlay. The scandal this created meant that Wollstonecraft's literary legacy was disregarded, and when, many years later, Fanny Imlay committed suicide as a result of an unhappy relationship, and Mary Godwin (Wollstonecraft's daughter with William Godwin) eloped with Percy Bysshe Shelley, society was quick to blame Wollstonecraft's feminist principles." - (www.bl.uk/collection-items/mary-wollstonecraft-a-vindication-of-the-rights-of-woman)
First edition. 8vo., xix,[1], 452 pp., volume 1 (all published), a little light browning, mainly marginal, small blindstamp to title, accession number to verso, modern calf gilt, a very good copy.
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