Wollstonecraft, Mary

27 April 1759 - 10 September 1797

Perhaps most directly relevant to the Gothic tradition in her role as mother of Mary Shelley—a role she had for about 10 days before her death from complications of that birth—Wollstonecraft is best known these days as the author of A Vindication of the Rights of Women [1792], widely regarded as the first manifesto of modern feminism. A radical and early feminist, Wollstonecraft married writer and philosopher William Godwin, who inadvertently turned her into something of a cultural persona non grata with the invasively detailed Memoirs he published shortly after her death. 		  Mary Wollstonecraft


Sites:
Biographical essay
A substantial document that also analyzes MW's influence on the tradition of women's rights. Highly recommended. [Janet Todd, BBC History]
Mary Wollstonecraft
Substantive overview of MW's life and intellectual-cultural context. [Jone Johnson Lewis, About.com]
Brief overview
[Before Victoria; NY Public Library]
Biographical overview
Emphasizes MW's connections to Unitarianism. [Louis Worth Jones, Dictionary of Unitarian & Universalist Biography]
Biographical note
[Wikipedia]
Mary Wollstonecraft page.
Overview of life and works [Kim Woodbridge]
Mary Wollstonecraft Page
Includes chronology, bibliography of critical works, and links to online texts. [Harriet Devine Jump]
Mary Wollsonecraft
A biographical note and a helpful collection of links. [Garth Kemerling]
Mary Wollstonecraft
Overview [Schoolnet]
Mary Wollstonecraft
[Steven Kreis, The History Guide]
Brief biographical note
[U Toronto]
Brief biographical note
[Gothic Labyrinth]
Brief biographical note
[John W. Cousins, A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature, 1910]
Mary Wollestonecraft Timeline
[Bill Uzgalis, Oregon State]
Wollstonecraft Hyper-Concordance
Part of the The Victorian Literary Studies Archive, this concordance allows you to search the etext of Maria, among others.
Portrait
The oft-reproduced portrait of a young Wollstonecraft by John Opie (1797). [National Portrait Gallery]


Etexts:
The Wrongs of Woman; or, Maria [1798]
Not a Gothic novel per se, this unfinished work illustrating the oppression and abuse of women in Wollstonecraft's time does owe some of its atmospherics and emotionalism to the Gothic.
- at Eserver.org. Entire text (275K)
- at Georgetown U, the Project Gutenberg etext. Entire text [264K]
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Essays and Reviews:
"William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft"
An entry on these two radical thinkers and their political and philosophical beliefs; Vindication is given considerable scrutiny. From The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907-21)  [Bartleby]

"Mary Wollstonecraft."