Biography Essay

Mary Wollstonecraft's literary and political reputation as one of the most important voices at the center of British feminism has never been more secure. Her early reviewing and educational writing did not gain her a wide audience, but with the publication of her biting attack on Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) she gained fame and notoriety. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) has placed her as a central figure in the articulation of feminism. She is best remembered for her polemical writing, but her two novels and her travel writing have been seen as significant expressions of her literary talents and of the vicissitudes of her extraordinary life.

Mary Wollstonecraft was born on 27 April 1759. She was the second of seven children and the eldest daughter of Edward John Wollstonecraft and Elizabeth Dixon Wollstonecraft. Edward came from a prosperous family of weavers in...