Mary Wollstonecraft

This chapter introduces Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) as a woman, mother, scholar, writer, and wife/lover. The following entry describes how her tumultuous upbringing played a role in how she viewed society and how that influenced her later writings on rights for men and women. It then moves into her influences and motivations as an eighteenth-century English woman. From there, the authors analyze her key contributions to various disciplines such as education, feminism, politics, and philosophy. The new insights modern theorists gained from (re)analyzing her key works inform many current trends in those same disciplines and comprise the next section. But as with any prolific figure, her work and ideas are not without criticism, as the Legacies and Unfinished Business section delineate. The article concludes with references and a list for further reading.