MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT (1759-1797)

Long before the women's movement or women's suffrage, there was Mary Wollstonecraft's Rights of Woman. Wollstonecraft was a progressive thinker and an outspoken advocate of the equality of the sexes. Like many pioneers struggling against outdated but dearly held conventions, she suffered much harsh criticism and never lived to see her ideals come to fruition. Always independent, Wollstonecraft had started and operated a school, and then worked as a governess before settling down to a literary career. In 1787, she became literary advisor to the publisher John Johnson of London. During this time she also wrote children's stories, a novel and some translations, and in 1792 Johnson published her now famous Vindication of the Rights of Woman.

Wollstonecraft's tract, written in simple and direct language, is a declaration of the rights of women to equality of education and civil opportunities, from which "they are unjustly denied a share." This stand provoked a bitter outcry, from which she escaped by going to France to observe the Revolution, and where she remained throughout the Reign of Terror. Later, she met and married the political philosopher, William Godwin, but died soon after giving birth to their daughter, Mary, who later married the poet Shelley and became famous as the author of Frankenstein.

The copy exhibited is the second American edition, published in the same year as Johnson's London edition and the first American edition, which was printed in Philadelphia by William Gibbons.