Mary (Wollstonecraft) Godwin (1759 - 1797)

For your consideration:

Mary Wollstonecraft's father was a drinker and a failed farmer; Mary’s eldest brother, Ned, received an education, but Mary didn’t. Her book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) is one of the earliest books of feminist philosophy, and in it Mary argues that women should have the education that she herself was denied. Reform of educational institutions would benefit not only women, but also society, because fulfilled women would make better wives, mothers, and even workers in traditionally male fields. The book was controversial, in large part because Wollstonecraft was controversial. Mary had had a daughter out of wedlock with an American named Gilbert Imlay, and when he left her, she tried to kill herself.

Then Mary joined a group of radical writers and publishers, where she met philosopher William Godwin. They became close friends, then lovers, and eventually married after she became pregnant. Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin died of septicemia 10 days after giving birth to a second daughter, Mary, who would go on to marry Percy Shelley and write Frankenstein.

From A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: “My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone.”

And: “If we revert to history, we shall find that the women who have distinguished themselves have neither been the most beautiful nor the most gentle of their sex.”

For your consideration:

In August 1787, aged twenty-eight and recently dismissed from her job as governess, Mary Wollstonecraft turned up at the premises of Joseph Johnson, No. 72 St Paul’s Churchyard, at the centre of the London book trade. A few months previously Johnson had published her work Thoughts on the Education of Daughters, for which he paid her ten guineas. In the brief notes Johnson drew up for William Godwin’s use after Wollstonecraft’s death, he recorded the essential facts of the meeting: “Mary came from Ireland in 1787 (Augt) & resided with me having determined to try to live by literary exertions & be independent”. To Johnson, at the time, Wollstonecraft offered this explanation: “Your sex generally laugh at female determinations; but let me tell you, I never yet resolved to do, any thing [sic] of consequence, that I did not adhere resolutely to it”. To her sister Everina, she wrote: “Mr Johnson … assures me that if I exert my talents in writing I may support myself in a comfortable way. I am then going to be the first of a new genus”.

The new genus was the professional woman writer, living by her craft alone. It was Johnson who provided Wollstonecraft with means and opportunity to fulfil her ambition. He found her lodgings just south of the Thames in Southwark, within walking distance of his business, he gave her work as his staff reviewer and translator, and he promoted and published her original compositions. The bargain benefited them both. Soon he would employ her on his new journal the Analytical Review. Wollstonecraft was only one of the women whose writing ambitions were realized through Johnson’s bookselling skills and whose careers Daisy Hay interweaves in her compelling and magnificent study Dinner with Joseph Johnson, a group biography of the diverse men and women drawn together by the man who made “books and friendship in a revolutionary age”. They worked in tumultuous times when the twin challenges of exponential growth in the reading public and curtailment of press freedoms tested publishers and authors as never before.

The year 1787 was one of dramatic highs and desperate lows for Mary Wollstonecraft. During more than half of it, while working as a governess, she endured isolation, frustration and all-round despair at the “painful warfare” of her life. Her luck changed when she left her employment and traveled to London to visit her publisher, Joseph Johnson, who had earlier sparked hope by paying 10 guineas for her first book, Thoughts on the Education of Daughters. In August, Joseph Johnson gave Wollstonecraft a room of her own. In November, he went one step further and gave her a house with a servant just south of the Thames. There she could write alone. “Whenever I am tired of solitude,” she told her sister Everina, “I go to Mr. Johnson's, and there I meet the kind of company I find most pleasure in.”

Johnson continued to support Wollstonecraft throughout her career, but his generosity was offered in expectation of a literary return, Mary Wollstonecraft kept her end of the bargain by producing an array of work, from conduct books to moral tales (illustrated by Blake) to her 1792 seminal study “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.”<ref>Daisy Hay, Dinner with Joseph Johnson: Books and Friendship in a Revolutionary Age, Princeton University Press, New Jersey, April 7, 2022.</ref>

The early feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, whose portrait Henry Füssli had painted, planned a trip with him to Paris, and pursued him determinedly, but communication between the two was stopped by Rawlins. Fuseli later said "I hate clever women. They are only troublesome". <ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Fuseli</ref>

Hi Lynden, England Project account added to this profile as well. Thanks!

Hello Lynden, the England Project would like to take on the management of this project protected profile, as per About Project Protection. Please contact me if you would like to discuss, otherwise I'll proceed in a week or so. Thank you.

Also, I don't think Mary ever used the last name "Shelley" - that was her daughter. This Mary's last name would be Godwin (who she married).

Based on the information in her bio and on wiki, she is the daughter of Edward John Wollstonecraft and Elizabeth Dixon. However, the parents in her profile are what appear to be her grandparents. I suspect we need to change her father to Wollstonecraft-2 and add Elizabeth Dixon. Please let me know if you see this the same way or if I'm missing something. I can remove the PPP if we need to change parents. Thanks.