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GODWIN, MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT (1759-1797)

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Originally appearing in Volume V12, Page 177 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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GODWIN, See also:MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT (1759-1797) , See also:English See also:miscellaneous' writer, was See also:born at Hoxton, on the 27th of See also:April 1759. Her See also:family was of Irish extraction, and Mary's See also:grand-See also:father, who was a respectable manufacturer in See also:Spitalfields, realized the See also:property' which his son squandered. Her See also:mother, See also:Elizabeth See also:Dixon, was Irish, and of See also:good family. Her father, See also:Edward See also:John Wollstonecraft, after dissipating the greater See also:part of his patrimony, tried to See also:earn a living by farming, which only plunged him into deeper difficulties, and he led a wandering, shifty See also:life. The family roamed from Hoxton to See also:Edmonton, to See also:Essex, to See also:Beverley in See also:Yorkshire, to Laugharne, See also:Pembrokeshire, and back to See also:London again. After Mrs Wollstonecraft's See also:death in 178o, soon followed by her See also:husband's second See also:marriage, the three daughters, Mary, Everina and Eliza, sought to earn their own livelihood. The sisters were all See also:clever See also:women—Mary and Eliza far above the See also:average" —but their opportunities of culture had been few. Mary, 'the eldest, went in the first instance to live with her friend Fanny See also:Blood, a girl of her own See also:age, whose father, like Wollstonecraft, was addicted to drink and dissipation. As See also:long as she lived with the Bloods, Mary helped Mrs Blood to earn See also:money by taking in See also:needlework, while Fanny painted in See also:water-See also:colours.. Everina went to live with her See also:brother Edward, and Eliza made a hasty and, as it proved, unhappy marriage with a Mr See also:Bishop. A legal separation was afterwards obtained, and the sisters, together with Fanny Blood, took a See also:house, first at See also:Islington, afterwards at Newington See also:Green, and opened a school, which was carried on with indifferent success for nearly two years. During their See also:residence at Newington Green, Mary was introduced to Dr See also:Johnson, who, as Godwin tells us, " treated her with particular kindness and See also:attention." In 1785 Fanny Blood married See also:Hugh Skeys, a See also:merchant, and went with him to See also:Lisbon, where she died in childbed after sending for Mary to See also:nurse her.

" The loss of Fanny," as she said in a See also:

letter to Mrs Skeys's brother, See also:George Blood, " was sufficient of itself to have See also:cast a See also:cloud over my brightest days. . . . I have lost all relish for See also:pleasure, and life seems a See also:burden almost too heavy to be endured." Her first novel, Mary, a Fiction (1788), was intended to commemorate her friendship with Fanny. After closing the school at Newington Green, Mary became governess in the family of See also:Lord Kingsborough, in See also:Ireland. Her pupils were much attached to her, especially See also:Margaret See also:King, afterwards See also:Lady Mountcashel; and indeed, Lady Kingsborough gave the See also:reason for dismissing her after one See also:year's service that the See also:children loved their governess better than their mother. Mary now resolved to devote herself to See also:literary See also:work, and she was encouraged by Johnson, the publisher in St See also:Paul's See also:churchyard, for whom she acted as literary adviser. She also undertook See also:translations, chiefly from the See also:French. The Elements of Morality (1790) from the See also:German of Salzmann, illustrated by See also:Blake, an old-fashioned See also:book for children, and See also:Lavater's See also:Physiognomy were among her translations. Her See also:Original Stories from Real Life were published in 1791, and, with illustrations by Blake, in 1796. In 1792 appeared A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, the work with which her name is always associated. It is not among the least oddities of this book that it is dedicated to M. Talleyrand See also:Perigord, See also:late bishop of See also:Autun.

Mary Wollstonecraft still believed him to be sincere, and working in the same direction as herself. In the See also:

dedication she states the " See also:main See also:argument " of the work, " built on this See also:simple principle that, if woman be not prepared by See also:education to become the See also:companion of See also:man, she will stop the progress of knowledge, for truth must be See also:common to all, or it will be inefficacious with respect to its See also:influence or See also:general practice." In carrying out this argument she used See also:great plainness of speech, and it was this that caused all, or nearly all, the outcry. For she did not attack the institution of marriage, nor assail orthodox See also:religion; her book was really a plea for equality of education, passing into one for See also:state education and for the See also:joint education of the sexes. It was a protest against the See also:assumption that woman was only the plaything of man, and she asserted that intellectual companionship was the See also:chief, as it is the lasting, happiness of marriage. She thus directly opposed the teaching of See also:Rousseau, of whom she was in other respects an ardent See also:disciple. Mrs Wollstonecraft, as she now styled herself, desired to See also:watch the progress of the Revolution in See also:France, and went to See also:Paris in 1792. Godwin, in his memoir of his wife, considers that the See also:change of residence may have been prompted by the See also:discovery that she was becoming attached to See also:Henry See also:Fuseli, but there is little to confirm this surmise; indeed, it was first proposed that she should go to Paris in See also:company with him and his wife, nor was there any subsequent See also:breach in their friendship. She remained in Paris during the Reign of Terror, when communication with See also:England was difficult or almost impossible. Some See also:time in the See also:spring or summer of 1793 See also:Captain See also:Gilbert Imlay, an See also:American, became acquainted with Mary—an acquaintance which ended in a more intimate connexion. There was no legal ceremony of marriage, and it is doubtful whether such a marriage would have been valid at the time; but she passed as Imlay's wife, and Imlay himself terms her in a legal document, " Mary Imlay, my best friend and wife." In See also:August 1793 Imlay was called to See also:Havre on business, and was absent for some months, during which time most bf the letters published after her death by Godwin were written. Towards the end of the year she joined Imlay at Havre, and there in the spring of 1794 she gave See also:birth to a girl, who received the name of Fanny, in memory of the dear friend of her youth. In this year she published the first See also:volume of a never completed See also:Historical and Moral View of the French Revolution.

Imlay became involved in a multitude of speculations, and his See also:

affection for Mary and their See also:child was already waning. He See also:left Mary for some months at Havre. In See also:June 1795, after joining him in England, Mary left for See also:Norway on business for Imlay. Her letters from Norway, divested of all See also:personal details, were afterwards published. She returned to England late in 1795, and found letters awaiting her from Imlay, intimating his intention to See also:separate from her, and offering to See also:settle an See also:annuity on her and her child. For herself she rejected this offer with scorn: " From you," she wrote, " I will not receive anything more. I am not sufficiently humbled to depend on your beneficence." They met again, and for a See also:short time lived together, until the discovery that he was carrying on an intrigue under her own roof drove her to despair, and she attempted to drown herself by leaping from Putney See also:bridge, but was rescued by watermen. Imlay now completely deserted her, although she continued to See also:bear his name. In 1796, when Mary Wollstonecraft was living in London, supporting herself and her child by working, as before, for Mr Johnson, she met See also:William Godwin. A friendship sprang up between them,—a friendship, as he himself says,.which " melted into love." Godwin states that " ideas which he is now willing to denominate prejudices made him by no means willing to conform to the ceremony of marriage "; but these prejudices were overcome, and they were married at St Pancras See also:church on the 29th of See also:March 1797. And now Mary had a See also:season of real See also:calm in her stormy existence. Godwin, for once only in his life, was stirred by See also:passion, and his admiration for his wife equalled his affection.

But their happiness was of short duration. The birth of her daughter Mary, afterwards the wife of See also:

Percy Bysshe See also:Shelley, on the 3oth of August 1797, proved fatal, and Mrs Godwin died on the loth of See also:September following. She was buried in the churchyard of Old St Pancras, but her remains were afterwards removed by See also:Sir Percy Shelley to the churchyard of St See also:Peter's, See also:Bournemouth. Her See also:principal published See also:works are as follows:—Thoughts on the Education of Daughters,. . . (1787) ; The See also:Female Reader (selections) (1789); Original Stories from Real Life (1791) ; An Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution, and the effects it has produced in See also:Europe, vol. i. (no more published) (1790); Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792); Vindication of the Rights of Man (1793); Mary, a Fiction (1788); Letters written during a Short Residence in See also:Sweden, Norway and See also:Denmark (1796); See also:Posthumous Works (4 vols., 1798). It is impossible to trace the many articles contributed by her to periodical literature. A memoir of her life was published by Godwin in 1798. A large portion of C. Began Paul's work, William Godwin, his See also:Friends and Contemporaries, was devoted to her, and an edition of the Letters to Imlay (1879), of which the first edition was published by Godwin, is prefaced by a somewhat See also:fuller memoir. See also E.

See also:

Dowden, The French Revolution and English Literature (1897) pp. 82 et seq.; E. R. See also:Pennell, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (1885), in the Eminent Women See also:Series; E. R. See also:Clough, A Study of Mary Wollstonecraft and the Rights of Woman (1898) ; an edition of her Original Stories (1906), with William Blake's illustrations and an introduction by E. V. See also:Lucas; and the Love Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft to Gilbert Imlay (1908), with an introduction by See also:Roger Ingpen.

End of Article: GODWIN, MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT (1759-1797)

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