Though Mary Hays is not primarily known as a biographer, she published two major works which established her as one of England's early feminist biographers. Both Female Biography; or, Memoirs of Illustrious and Celebrated Women, of all Ages and Countries (1803), published in six volumes, and Memoirs of Queens, Illustrious and Celebrated (1821) focus exclusively on women and are indicative of Hays's lifelong commitment to such important issues relating to women as education, employment or career opportunities, and the proper mode of conduct. Unlike her essays and novels published before 1800, her biographies are not polemic and do not represent original research; rather they support her contention that it is circumstances, not inherent capabilities, which define and create a woman.

Born in 1760 to a large family of Dissenters in Southwark, near London, Mary Hays lived quietly for the first seventeen years of her life. In 1777 she met and fell in love...