Search results for ""Author Mary Wollstonecraft""

Written as a passionate riposte to Talleyrand’s report to the French National Assembly, in which he declared that women needed only a domestic education, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman attacked the traditional view of decorative femininity and deplored the educational restrictions and the “mistaken notions of female excellence” that degraded women and kept them in a state of “slavish dependence”. Indeed, independence, “the grand blessing of life”, was at the heart of Wollstonecraft’s philosophy, and it is a mark of the profound influence of her words that Virginia Woolf, writing almost a century and a half later, could state that “her originality has become our commonplace”. As a companion piece, this volume also includes A Vindication of the Rights of Men – an earlier influential pamphlet advocating republicanism and social equality. The two Vindications, taken together, showcase Wollstonecraft’s rhetorical talents, as well as her brilliance and depth of thought as an anti-establishment polemist and social reformer.

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A seminal book in a feminist conversation that still continues today.Now regarded as one of the founding feminist philosophers, Mary Wollstonecraft's writings have inspired conversation and action since their first publication. Wollstonecraft produced this declaration of female independence in 1792. Passionate, eloquent and forthright, it launched a scathing attack on the current understanding of women and laid out the tenets for a new vision: equal education, an end to prejudice and a chance for women to become defined by their profession, not their partner. Whereas Mary Wollstonecraft's work was received at the time with a mixture of admiration and outrage, she is now rightly viewed as a powerful matriarch of modern feminism.Part of a boldly designed series of classics, with wider margins for notes, this book is perfect for design-lovers and students alike. With bold, eye-catching graphic covers by Evi O Studio, this collection aims to introduce a selection of the most celebrated works of the last thousand years to a new audience. Featuring tales of adventure, fiction from the 19th and 20th centuries, feminist writings, and reflections on art, politics, philosophy and the origins of man, this is a small, wide-reaching and essential collection.'My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures.'

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Discover Wollstonecraft’s classic feminist text in an abridged, digestible form.WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ZOE WILLIAMS The term feminism did not yet exist when Mary Wollstonecraft wrote this book, but it was the first great piece of feminist writing. In these pages you will find the essence of her argument – for the education of women and for an increased female contribution to society. Her work made the first ripples of what would later become the tidal wave of the women’s rights movement. Rationalist but revolutionary, Wollstonecraft changed the world for women.Vintage Feminism: classic feminist texts in short form

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A key work of proto-feminism, Mary Wollstonecraft's readable and impassioned argument is as relevant today as it was two hundred years ago. Before the concept of equality between the sexes was even conceived, Wollstonecraft wrote this book, a treatise of proto-feminism that was as powerful and original then as it is now. In it she argues with clarity and originality for the rational education of women and for an increased female contribution to society. It was a cry for justice from a woman with no power other than her pen and it put in motion a drive towards greater equality between men and women, a movement which continues to this day. ‘The first great piece of feminist writing’ Independent

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Writing just after the French and American revolutions, Mary Wollstonecraft firmly established the demand for women’s emancipation in the context of the ever-widening urge for human rights and individual freedom that followed in the wake of these two great upheavals. She thereby opened the richest, most productive vein in feminist thought; and her success can be judged by the fact that her once radical polemic, through the efforts of the innumerable writers and activists she influenced, has become the accepted wisdom of the modern era. The present edition contains a substantial essay by a major scholar to celebrate the bicentenary of publication in 1792.

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Also published as The Beautiful Widow, Mary Shelley’s penultimate novel explores the web of relationships between three women bound together by the exacting Lord Lodore: Cornelia, Lodore’s estranged wife, ruled by her mother and the norms of aristocratic society; Ethel, his daughter, raised in the wilderness of Illinois and utterly reliant on her father; and finally, the independent and highly educated Fanny Derham, the daughter of Lodore’s childhood friend. Long considered the most Austen-like and socially oriented of Mary Shelley’s novels, Lodore is an essential read for anyone seeking to understand this brilliant feminist writer.

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This volume brings together extracts of the major political writings of Mary Wollstonecraft in the order in which they appeared in the revolutionary 1790s. It traces her passionate and indignant response to the excitement of the early days of the French Revolution and then her uneasiness at its later bloody phase. It reveals her developing understanding of women's involvement in the political and social life of the nation and her growing awareness of the relationship between politics and economics and between political institutions and the individual. In personal terms, the works show her struggling with a belief in the perfectibility of human nature through rational education, a doctrine that became weaker under the onslaught of her own miserable experience and the revolutionary massacres. Janet Todd's introduction illuminates the progress of Wollstonecraft's thought, showing that a reading of all three works allows her to emerge as a more substantial political writer than a study of The Rights of Woman alone can reveal. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

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Composed in 1790, Mary Wollstonecraft's seminal feminist tract A Vindication of the Rights of Woman broke new ground in its demand for women's education. A Vindication remains one of history's most important and elegant broadsides against sexual oppression. In her introduction, renowned socialist feminist Sheila Rowbotham casts Wollstonecraft's life and work in a new light.

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For many years the victim of smear campaigns by notable male writers, and dismissed as being merely ‘the mother of Mary Shelley’, Mary Wollstonecraft has claimed her rightful title as one of the founders of feminist thought, a movement anchored in her Vindications. Outraged by Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France, its use of gendered language and defence of monarchy and hereditary privilege, A Vindication of the Rights of Men turned the tables on philosophy. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman swiftly followed, taking the conversation further, and arguing the case for women’s education. Together, these two seminal works went on to change the course of history, and her arguments continue to hold water today. This edition contains explanatory notes and an introduction by Bee Rowlatt, Chair of the Wollstonecraft Society.

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'She is alive and active - we hear her voice and trace her influence even now' Virginia WoolfWriting in an age when the call for the rights of man had brought revolution to America and France, Mary Wollstonecraft produced her own declaration of female independence in 1792. Passionate and forthright, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman attacked the prevailing view of docile, decorative femininity, and instead laid out the principles of emancipation: an equal education for girls and boys, an end to prejudice, and for women to become defined by their profession, not their partner. Mary Wollstonecraft's work was received with a mixture of admiration and outrage - one critic called her 'a hyena in petticoats' - yet it established her as the mother of modern feminism.

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'I have lately written...a tale, to illustrate an opinion of mine, that a genius will educate itself.' Mary Wollstonecraft is best known for her pioneering views on the rights of women to share equal rights and opportunities with men. Expressed most forcefully in her Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), her forthright opinions also inform her two innovative novels, Mary and The Wrongs of Woman, a fictional sequel to the Vindication. In both novels the heroines have to rely on their own resources to establish their independence and intellectual development. Mary learns to take control of her destiny and become a social philanthropist, while Maria, in The Wrongs of Woman, fights imprisonment and a loveless marriage to claim her rights. Strongly autobiographical, both novels powerfully complement Wollstonecraft's non-fictional writing, inspired by the French Revolution and the social upheavals that followed. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

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This stunning keepsake—perfect for fans of the mysterious and macabre—comprises Mary Shelley’s classic tale of a botched experiment in immortality, “The Mortal Immortal,” and “On Ghosts: An Essay,” her appraisal of popular ghost legends.

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The classic novel brought to life in full color! 'Cursed be the hands that formed you'! True to the original novel, Declan Shalvey's naturally gothic artistic style is a perfect match for this epic tale. "Frankenstein" is such a well known title, yet the films strayed so far beyond the original novel that many people today don't realize how this classic horror tale deals with such timeless subjects as alienation, empathy and understanding beyond appearance. This is another great story, beautifully crafted into a superb graphic novel.

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“The art of travelling is only a branch of the art of thinking,” Mary Wollstonecraft wrote in one of her many reviews of works of travel writing. A Short Residence is her own travel memoir. In a series of letters addressed to an unnamed lover, the work narrates Wollstonecraft’s journey through Scandinavia in 1795, on much of which she was accompanied by her infant daughter. Passionate and personal, A Short Residence is at once a moving epistolary travel narrative, a politically-motivated ethnographic tract, a work of scenic tourism, and a sentimental journey. It is both as much a work of political thought as Wollstonecraft’s better known treatises, and a brilliant, innovative, and influential work in the genre.This Broadview edition provides a helpful introduction and extensive appendices that contextualize this remarkable text in relation to key political and aesthetic debates. It also includes a significant selection from Wollstonecraft’s travel reviews.

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Writing in an age when the call for the rights of man had brought revolution to America and France, Mary Wollstonecraft produced her own declaration of female independence in 1792. Passionate and forthright, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman attacked the prevailing view of docile, decorative femininity, and instead laid out the principles of emancipation: an equal education for girls and boys, an end to prejudice, and for women to become defined by their profession, not their partner. Mary Wollstonecraft's work was received with a mixture of admiration and outrage - Walpole called her 'a hyena in petticoats' - yet it established her as the mother of modern feminism.

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"James Rieger's Frankenstein is relatively special among editions: it is the definitive scholarly text, and it is also the most readable copy for the classroom and the general reader. . . .The Rieger Frankenstein is very simply the best edition of this tremendously important and popular novel."—William Veeder, University of Chicago

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By the dim and yellow light of the moon, as it forced its way through the window-shutters, I beheld the wretch-the miserable monster whom I had created. He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were fixed on me. His jaws opened...' Frankenstein is the most celebrated horror story ever written. It tells the dreadful tale of Victor Frankenstein, a visionary young student of natural philosophy, who discovers the secret of life. In the grip of his obsession he constructs a being from dead body parts, and animates this creature. The results, for Victor and for his family, are catastrophic. Written when Mary Shelley was just eighteen, Frankenstein was inspired by the ghost stories and vogue for Gothic literature that fascinated the Romantic writers of her time. She transformed these supernatural elements an epic parable that warned against the threats to humanity posed by accelerating technological progress. Published for the 200th anniversary, this edition, based on the original 1818 text, explains in detail the turbulent intellectual context in which Shelley was writing, and also investigates how her novel has since become a byword for controversial practices in science and medicine, from manipulating ecosystems to vivisection and genetic modification. As an iconic study of power, creativity, and, ultimately, what it is to be human, Frankenstein continues to shape our thinking in profound ways to this day.

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From the bits and pieces of dead bodies and the power of electricity, the brilliant Victor Frankenstein fashions a new form of life - only to discover, too late, the irreparable damage he has caused. Mary Shelley's tragic story of the creation of man, or monster, is as compelling and powerful now as it was when it was written. Abridged for easier reading and carefully rewritten, with "Classic Starts[trademark]", young readers can experience the wonder of timeless stories from an early age.

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Mary Shelley’s timeless gothic classic accompanied by the art of legendary illustrator Bernie Wrightson live on in this gorgeous illustrated adaptation of Frankenstein—featuring an introduction by Stephen King.Few works by comic book artists have earned the universal acclaim and reverence that Bernie Wrightson’s illustrated version of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein was met with upon its original release in 1983, which vividly presented the timeless, terrifying tale of one man’s obsession to create life—and the monster that became his legacy. A generation later, this magnificent pairing of art and literature is still considered to be one of the greatest achievements made by any artist in the field. This book includes the complete text of the original groundbreaking novel and approximately fifty original full-page illustrations by Bernie Wrightson—created over a period of seven years—that continue to stun the world with their monumental beauty and uniqueness. This edition also contains introductions by #1 New York Times bestselling author Stephen King and author Mary Shelley, as well as supplemental material including a history of the novel, a chronology of Mary Shelley’s life and work, and the historical context of Frankenstein for readers.

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This edition features a shrewd, annotated abridgment of Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) accompanied by an array of texts that help situate the Vindication in its political, historical, and intellectual contexts. Included are key selections from Wollstonecraft's other writings; from closely related works by Burke, Paine, Godwin, Rousseau, Macaulay, Talleyrand, and Brockden Brown; and from the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen and de Gouges' Declaration of the Rights of Woman and Female Citizen (1791).

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In these two closely linked works - a travel book and a biography of its author - we witness a moving encounter between two of the most daring and original minds of the late eighteenth century: A Short Residence in Sweden is the record of Wollstonecraft's last journey in search of happiness, into the remote and beautiful backwoods of Scandinavia. The quest for a lost treasure ship, the pain of a wrecked love affair, memories of the French Revolution, and the longing for some Golden Age, all shape this vivid narrative, which Richard Holmes argues is one of the neglected masterpieces of early English Romanticism.Memoirs is Godwin's own account of Wollstonecraft's life, written with passionate intensity a few weeks after her tragic death. Casting aside literary convention, Godwin creates an intimate portrait of his wife, startling in its candour and psychological truth. Received with outrage by friends and critics alike, and virtually suppressed for a century, it can now be recognized as one of the landmarks in the development of modern biography.

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Shelley's suspenseful and intellectually rich gothic tale confronts some of the most important and enduring themes in all of literture--the power of human imagination, the potential hubris of science, the gulf between appearance and essence, the effects of human cruelty, the desire for revenge and the need for forgiveness, and much more. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

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Mary Wollstonecraft wrote these two novellas at the beginning and end of her years of writing and political activism. Though written at different times, they explore some of the same issues: ideals of femininity as celebrated by the cult of sensibility, the unequal education of women, and domestic subjugation. Mary counters the contemporary trend of weak, emotional heroines with the story of an intelligent and creative young woman who educates herself through her close friendships with men and women. Darker and more overtly feminist, The Wrongs of Woman is set in an insane asylum, where a young woman has been wrongly imprisoned by her husband.By presenting the novellas in light of such texts as Wollstonecraft’s letters, her polemical and educational prose, similar works by other feminists and political reformists, the literature of sentiment, and contemporary medical texts, this edition encourages an appreciation of the complexity and sophistication of Wollstonecraft’s writing goals as a radical feminist in the 1790s.

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This edition features a shrewd, annotated abridgment of Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) accompanied by an array of texts that help situate the Vindication in its political, historical, and intellectual contexts. Included are key selections from Wollstonecraft's other writings; from closely related works by Burke, Paine, Godwin, Rousseau, Macaulay, Talleyrand, and Brockden Brown; and from the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen and de Gouges' Declaration of the Rights of Woman and Female Citizen (1791).

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'If ever there was a book calculated to make a man in love with its author, this appears to me to be the book.' William Godwin, the author's future husband, was not alone in admiring Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, Wollstonecraft's most popular book during her lifetime. Not easy to categorize, it is both an arresting travel book and a moving exploration of her personal and political selves. Wollstonecraft set out for Scandinavia just two weeks after her first suicide attempt, on a mission from the lover whose affections she doubted, to recover his silver on a ship that had gone missing. With her baby daughter and a nursemaid, she travelled across the dramatic landscape and wrote sublime descriptions of the natural world, and the events and people she encountered. What emerges most vividly is Wollstonecraft's courage and ability to look beyond her own suffering to the turmoil around her in revolutionary Europe, and a better future. This edition includes further material on the silver ship, Wollstonecraft's personal letters to Imlay during her trip, an extract from Godwin's memoir, and a selection of contemporary reviews. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

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Written during a time of great political turmoil, social anxiety, and against the backdrop of the French Revolution, Wollstonecraft’s argument continues to challenge and inspire. This revised and expanded Third Edition is again based on the 1792 second-edition text and is accompanied by revised and expanded explanatory annotations. “Backgrounds and Contexts” is also significantly expanded and contains twenty-four works organized thematically into these groupings: “Legacies of English Radicalism,” “Education,” “Wollstonecraft’s Revolutionary Moment,” and “The Wollstonecraft Debate.” Opinions on a variety of reforms that may be compared and contrasted with Wollstonecraft’s include those by John Milton, John Locke, Mary Astell, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Hannah More, Richard Price, Edmund Burke, Maria Edgeworth, and William Godwin, among others. “Criticism” includes six seminal essays on A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Elissa S. Guralnick, Mitzi Myers, Cora Kaplan, Mary Poovey, Claudia L. Johnson, and Barbara Taylor. A Chronology of Wollstonecraft’s life and work and a Selected Bibliography are also included.

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By the dim and yellow light of the moon, as it forced its way through the window-shutters, I beheld the wretch-the miserable monster whom I had created. He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were fixed on me. His jaws opened... Frankenstein is the most celebrated horror story ever written. It tells the dreadful tale of Victor Frankenstein, a visionary young student of natural philosophy, who discovers the secret of life. In the grip of his obsession he constructs a being from dead body parts, and animates this creature. The results, for Victor and for his family, are catastrophic. Written when Mary Shelley was just eighteen, Frankenstein was inspired by the ghost stories and vogue for Gothic literature that fascinated the Romantic writers of her time. She transformed these supernatural elements an epic parable that warned against the threats to humanity posed by accelerating technological progress. Published for the 200th anniversary, this edition, based on the original 1818 text, explains in detail the turbulent intellectual context in which Shelley was writing, and also investigates how her novel has since become a byword for controversial practices in science and medicine, from manipulating ecosystems to vivisection and genetic modification. As an iconic study of power, creativity, and, ultimately, what it is to be human, Frankenstein continues to shape our thinking in profound ways to this day.

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An annotated and illustrated edition of Mary Shelley's classic work, celebrating its 200th anniversary in 2018.First published in 1818, Frankenstein has spellbound, disturbed, and fascinated readers for generations. One of the most haunting and enduring works ever written in English, it has inspired numerous retellings and sequels in virtually every medium, making the Frankenstein myth familiar even to those who have never read a word of Mary Shelley’s remarkable novel. Now, this freshly annotated, illustrated edition illuminates the novel and its electrifying afterlife with unmatched detail and vitality.From the first decade after publication, “Frankenstein” became a byword for any new, disturbing developments in science, technology, and human imagination. The editors’ Introduction explores the fable’s continuing presence in popular culture and intellectual life as well as the novel’s genesis and composition. Mary Shelley’s awareness of European politics and history, her interest in the poets and philosophical debates of the day, and especially her genius in distilling her personal traumas come alive in this engaging essay.The editors’ commentary, placed conveniently alongside the text, provides stimulating company. Their often surprising observations are drawn from a lifetime of reading and teaching the novel. A wealth of illustrations, many in color, immerses the reader in Shelley’s literary and social world, in the range of artwork inspired by her novel, as well as in Frankenstein’s provocative cinematic career. The fresh light that The Annotated Frankenstein casts on a story everyone thinks is familiar will delight readers while deepening their understanding of Mary Shelley’s novel and the Romantic era in which it was created.

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'The last man! I may well describe that solitary being's feelings, feeling myself as the last relic of a beloved race, my companions extinct before me.' Mary Shelley, Journal (May 1824). Best remembered as the author of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley wrote The Last Man eight years later, on returning to England from Italy after her husband's death. It is the twenty-first century, and England is a republic governed by a ruling elite, one of whom, Adrian, Earl of Windsor, has introduced a Cumbrian boy to the circle. This outsider, Lionel Verney, narrates the story, a tale of complicated, tragic love, and of the gradual extermination of the human race by plague. The Last Man also functions as an intriguing roman à clef, for the saintly Adrian is a monument to Percy Bysshe Shelley, and his friend Lord Raymond is a portrait of Byron. The novel offers a vision of the future that expresses a reaction against Romanticism, as Shelley demonstrates the failure of the imagination and of art to redeem her doomed characters. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

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