Mary Astell is regarded as one of the earliest British feminists. In a time when women were seen as intellectually deficient by nature, she was one of the first thinkers to embrace Cartesian rationalism in support of arguments for the equal rational capacities of the sexes; she advocated dualism as a way in which women could define their selfhood in terms of their minds, rather than their bodies; and she used these insights to oppose the inferior education bestowed upon her sex. Although Astell is best known for her feminist writings, her other works are also an important reminder that a woman philosopher was once a clear and articulate critic of her famous male contemporaries in general seventeenth- century debates.

Born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne on 12 November 1666, Mary Astell was the first child of Mary Errington and Peter Astell, a gentleman and member of the Company of Hostmen. From a...