Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark (Cosimo Classics. Travel & Exploration) - Softcover

Wollstonecraft, Mary

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1596055375 ISBN 13: 9781596055377

Publisher: Cosimo Classics, 2005

Synopsis

"Travellers who require that every nation should resemble their native country, had better stay at home," Mary Wollstonecraft wrote to her lover, Gilbert Imlay, in one of a series of letters addressed to him from her travels through Scandinavia in the summer of 1795. With a keen, withering eye, Wollstonecraft, one of the founding mothers of modern feminism, of course offers her insightful observations on the condition of womanhood in these northerly nations. But she also delights the reader with poetic portraits of the landscapes, observations on the rural and urban societies she encounters, and the particular difficulties encountered by a woman travelling alone, with only her infant daughter and a nursemaid for company... especially a woman who asks "men's questions" of those she meets along the way. First collected in book form in 1796, these letters display a strikingly modern attitude from a woman who was far ahead of her time. British writer and educator MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT (1759-1797), the mother of Frankenstein author Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, espoused her then-radical feminist and liberal philosophies in such works as Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787), A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), and History and Moral View of the Origins and Progress of the French Revolution (1793).

About this title

Book Description:

These twenty-five letters, published in 1796, describe Mary Wollstonecraft's audacious trip to Scandinavia to retrieve a stolen ship for her lover Imlay. More than just a travelogue, they provide fascinating insights into the radical philosophy of this influential thinker, and the inner turmoil she was experiencing at the time.

About the Author:

Mary Wollstonecraft was a British author, philosopher, and advocate of women s rights. Raised by an abusive and neglectful father, Wollstonecraft was determined to have her own livelihood, and worked as a teacher and governess before becoming a translator and advisor for Joseph Johnson, a publisher of radical texts, in 1788. It was during this time that she wrote her most famous work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, in which she argued against the idea that women are helpless and inferior to men, which was followed by Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman, which asserted that women had strong sexual desires.

Wollstonecraft passed away tragically in 1797, ten days after the birth of her second daughter, Mary, who would go on to write the literary classic Frankenstein. The life and death of Mary Wollstonecraft has been the subject of many biographies, including one written by her husband, Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman, published in 1798.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cosimo Classics
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 1596055375
• ISBN 13: 9781596055377
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 204