I

Of Mary Wollstonecraft’s ancestors little is known, except that they were of Irish descent. Her father, Edward John Wollstonecraft, was the son of a prosperous Spitalfields manufacturer of Irish birth, from whom he inherited the sum of ten thousand pounds. He married towards the middle of the eighteenth century Elizabeth Dixon, the daughter of a gentleman in good position, of Ballyshannon, by whom he had six children: Edward, Mary, Everina, Eliza, James, and Charles. Mary, the eldest daughter and second child, was born on April 27, 1759, the birth year of Burns and Schiller, and the last year of George II.’s reign. She passed her childhood, until she was five years old, in the neighbourhood of Epping Forest, but it is doubtful whether she was born there or at Hoxton. Mr. Wollstonecraft followed no profession in particular, although from time to time he dabbled in a variety of pursuits when seized with a desire to make money. He is described as of idle, dissipated habits, and possessed of an ungovernable temper and a restless spirit that urged him to perpetual changes of residence. From Hoxton, where he squandered most of his fortune, he wandered to Essex, and then, among other places, in 1768 to Beverley, in Yorkshire. Later he took up farming at Laugharne in Pembrokeshire, but he at length grew tired of this experiment and returned once more to London. As his fortunes declined, his brutality and selfishness increased, and Mary was frequently compelled to defend her mother from his acts of personal violence, sometimes by thrusting herself bodily between him and his victim. Mrs. Wollstonecraft herself was far from being an amiable woman; a petty tyrant and a stern but incompetent ruler of her household, she treated Mary as the scapegoat of the family. Mary’s early years therefore were far from being happy; what little schooling she had was spasmodic, owing to her father’s migratory habits.

In her sixteenth year, when the Wollstonecrafts were once more in London, Mary formed a friendship with Fanny Blood, a young girl about her own age, which was destined to be one of the happiest events of her life. There was a strong bond of sympathy between the two friends, for Fanny contrived by her work as an artist to be the chief support of her family, as her father, like Mr. Wollstonecraft, was a lazy, drunken fellow.

Mary’s new friend was an intellectual and cultured girl. She loved music, sang agreeably, was well-read too, for her age, and wrote interesting letters. It was by comparing Fanny Blood’s letters with her own, that Mary first recognised how defective her education had been. She applied herself therefore to the task of increasing her slender stock of knowledge—hoping ultimately to become a governess. At length, at the age of nineteen, Mary went to Bath as companion to a tiresome and exacting old lady, a Mrs. Dawson, the widow of a wealthy London tradesman. In spite of many difficulties, she managed to retain her situation for some two years, leaving it only to attend the deathbed of her mother.

Mrs. Wollstonecraft’s death (in 1780) was followed by the break-up of the home. Mary went to live temporarily with the Bloods at Walham Green, and assisted Mrs. Blood, who took in needle-work; Everina became for a short time housekeeper to her brother Edward, a solicitor; and Eliza married a Mr. Bishop.

Mr. Kegan Paul has pointed out that “all the Wollstonecraft sisters were enthusiastic, excitable, and hasty tempered, apt to exaggerate trifles, sensitive to magnify inattention into slights, and slights into studied insults. All had bad health of a kind which is especially trying to the nerves, and Eliza had in excess the family temperament and constitution.” Mrs. Bishop’s married life from the first was one of utter misery; they were an ill-matched pair, and her peculiar temperament evidently exasperated her husband’s worst nature. His outbursts of fury and the scenes of violence of daily occurrence, for which he was responsible, were afterwards described with realistic fidelity by Mary in her novel, “The Wrongs of Women.” It was plainly impossible for Mrs. Bishop to continue to live with such a man, and when, in 1782, she became dangerously ill, Mary, with her characteristic good nature, went to nurse her, and soon after assisted her in her flight from her husband.

In the following year (1783) Mary set up a school at Islington with Fanny Blood, and she was thus in a position to offer a home to her sisters, Mrs. Bishop and Everina. The school was afterwards moved to Newington Green, where Mary soon had an establishment with some twenty day scholars. After a time, emboldened by her success, she took a larger house; but unfortunately the number of her pupils did not increase in proportion to her obligations, which were now heavier than she could well meet.

While Mary was living at Newington Green, she was introduced to Dr. Johnson, who, Godwin says, treated her with particular kindness and attention, and with whom she had a long conversation. He desired her to repeat her visit, but she was prevented from seeing him again by his last illness and death.

In the meantime Fanny Blood had impaired her health by overwork, and signs of consumption were already evident. A Mr. Hugh Skeys, who was engaged in business at Lisbon, though somewhat of a weak lover, had long admired Fanny, and wanted to marry her. It was thought that the climate of Portugal might help to restore her health, and she consented, perhaps more on that account than on any other, to become his wife. She left England in February 1785, but her health continued to grow worse. Mary’s anxiety for her friend’s welfare was such that, on hearing of her grave condition, she at once went off to Lisbon, and arrived after a stormy passage, only in time to comfort Fanny in her dying moments. Mary was almost broken-hearted at the loss of her friend, and she made her stay in Lisbon as short as possible, remaining only as long as was necessary for Mrs. Skeys’s funeral.

She returned to England to find that the school had greatly suffered by neglect during her absence. In a letter to Mrs. Skeys’s brother, George Blood, she says: “The loss of Fanny was sufficient to have thrown a cloud over my brightest days: what effect then must it have, when I am bereft of every other comfort? I have too many debts, the rent is so enormous, and where to go, without money or friends, who can point out?”

She thus realised that to continue her school was useless. But her experience as a schoolmistress was to bear fruit in the future. She had observed some of the defects of the educational methods of her time, and her earliest published effort was a pamphlet entitled, “Thoughts on the Education of Daughters,” (1787). For this essay she received ten guineas, a sum that she gave to the parents of her friend, Mr. and Mrs. Blood, who were desirous of going over to Ireland.

She soon went to Ireland herself, for in the October of 1787 she became governess to the daughters of Lord Kingsborough at Michaelstown, with a salary of forty pounds a year. Lady Kingsborough in Mary’s opinion was “a shrewd clever woman, a great talker.... She rouges, and in short is a fine lady without fancy or sensibility. I am almost tormented to death by dogs....” Lady Kingsborough was rather selfish and uncultured, and her chief object was the pursuit of pleasure. She pampered her dogs, much to the disgust of Mary Wollstonecraft, and neglected her children. What views she had on education were narrow. She had been accustomed to submission from her governess, but she learnt before long that Mary was not of a tractable disposition. The children, at first unruly and defiant, “literally speaking, wild Irish, unformed and not very pleasing,” soon gave Mary their confidence, and before long their affection. One of her pupils, Margaret King, afterwards Lady Mountcashel, always retained the warmest regard for Mary Wollstonecraft. Lady Mountcashel continued her acquaintance with William Godwin after Mary’s death, and later came across Shelley and his wife in Italy. Mary won from the children the affection that they withheld from their mother, consequently, in the autumn of 1788, when she had been with Lady Kingsborough for about a year, she received her dismissal. She had completed by this time the novel to which she gave the name of “Mary,” which is a tribute to the memory of her friend Fanny Blood.

II

And now, in her thirtieth year, Mary Wollstonecraft had concluded her career as a governess, and was resolved henceforth to devote herself to literature. Her chances of success were slender indeed, for she had written nothing to encourage her for such a venture. It was her fortune, however, to make the acquaintance of Joseph Johnson, the humanitarian publisher and bookseller of St. Paul’s Churchyard, who issued the works of Priestley, Horne Tooke, Gilbert Wakefield, and other men of advanced thought, and she met at his table many of the authors for whom he published, and such eminent men of the day as William Blake, Fuseli, and Tom Paine. Mr. Johnson, who afterwards proved one of her best friends, encouraged her in her literary plans. He was the publisher of her “Thoughts on the Education of Daughters,” and had recognised in that little book so much promise, that when she sought his advice, he at once offered to assist her with employment.

Mary therefore settled at Michaelmas 1788 in a house in George Street, Blackfriars. She had brought to London the manuscript of her novel “Mary,” and she set to work on a book for children entitled “Original Stories from Real Life.” Both of these books appeared before the year was out, the latter with quaint plates by William Blake. Mary also occupied some of her time with translations from the French, German, and even Dutch, one of which was an abridged edition of Saltzmann’s “Elements of Morality,” for which Blake also supplied the illustrations. Besides this work, Johnson engaged Mary as his literary adviser or “reader,” and secured her services in connexion with The Analytical Review, a periodical that he had recently founded.

While she was at George Street she also wrote her “Vindication of the Rights of Man” in a letter to Edmund Burke. Her chief satisfaction in keeping up this house was to have a home where her brothers and sisters could always come when out of employment. She was never weary of assisting them either with money, or by exerting her influence to find them situations. One of her first acts when she settled in London was to send Everina Wollstonecraft to Paris to improve her French accent. Mr. Johnson, who wrote a short account of Mary’s life in London at this time, says she often spent her afternoons and evenings at his house, and used to seek his advice, or unburden her troubles to him. Among the many duties she imposed on herself was the charge of her father’s affairs, which must indeed have been a profitless undertaking.

The most important of Mary Wollstonecraft’s labours while she was living at Blackfriars was the writing of the book that is chiefly associated with her name, “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.” This volume—now much better known by its title than its contents—was dedicated to the astute M. Talleyrand de PÉrigord, late Bishop of Autun, apparently on account of his authorship of a pamphlet on National Education. It is unnecessary to attempt an analysis of this strikingly original but most unequal book—modern reprints of the work have appeared under the editorship both of Mrs. Fawcett and Mrs. Pennell. It is sufficient to say that it is really a plea for a more enlightened system of education, affecting not only her own sex, but also humanity in its widest sense. Many of her suggestions have long since been put to practical use, such as that of a system of free national education, with equal advantages for boys and girls. The book contains too much theory and is therefore to a great extent obsolete. Mary Wollstonecraft protests against the custom that recognises woman as the plaything of man; she pleads rather for a friendly footing of equality between the sexes, besides claiming a new order of things for women, in terms which are unusually frank. Such a book could not fail to create a sensation, and it speedily made her notorious, not only in this country, but on the Continent, where it was translated into French. It was of course the outcome of the French Revolution; the whole work is permeated with the ideas and ideals of that movement, but whereas the French patriots demanded rights for men, she made the same demands also for women.

It is evident that the great historical drama then being enacted in France had made a deep impression on Mary’s mind—its influence is stamped on every page of her book, and it was her desire to visit France with Mr. Johnson and Fuseli. Her friends were, however, unable to accompany her, so she went alone in the December of 1792, chiefly with the object of perfecting her French. Godwin states, though apparently in error, that Fuseli was the cause of her going to France, the acquaintance with the painter having grown into something warmer than mere friendship. Fuseli, however, had a wife and was happily married, so Mary “prudently resolved to retire into another country, far remote from the object who had unintentionally excited the tender passion in her breast.”

She certainly arrived in Paris at a dramatic moment; she wrote on December 24 to her sister Everina: “The day after to-morrow I expect to see the King at the bar, and the consequences that will follow I am almost afraid to anticipate.” On the day in question, the 26th, Louis XVI. appeared in the Hall of the Convention to plead his cause through his advocate, Desize, and on the same day she wrote that letter to Mr. Johnson which has so often been quoted: “About nine o’clock this morning,” she says, “the King passed by my window, moving silently along (excepting now and then a few strokes on the drum, which rendered the stillness more awful) through empty streets, surrounded by the national guards, who, clustering round the carriage, seemed to deserve their name. The inhabitants flocked to their windows, but the casements were all shut, not a voice was heard, nor did I see anything like an insulting gesture. For the first time since I entered France I bowed to the majesty of the people, and respected the propriety of behaviour so perfectly in unison with my own feelings. I can scarcely tell you why, but an association of ideas made the tears flow insensibly from my eyes, when I saw Louis sitting, with more dignity than I expected from his character, in a hackney coach, going to meet death, where so many of his race had triumphed. My fancy instantly brought Louis XIV. before me, entering the capital with all his pomp, after one of his victories so flattering to his pride, only to see the sunshine of prosperity overshadowed by the sublime gloom of misery....”

Mary first went to stay at the house of Madame Filiettaz, the daughter of Madame Bregantz, in whose school at Putney both Mrs. Bishop and Everina Wollstonecraft had been teachers. Mary was now something of a celebrity—“Authorship,” she writes, “is a heavy weight for female shoulders, especially in the sunshine of prosperity”—and she carried with her letters of introduction to several influential people in Paris. She renewed her acquaintance with Tom Paine, became intimate with Helen Maria Williams (who is said to have once lived with Imlay), and visited, among others, the house of Mr. Thomas Christie. It was her intention to go to Switzerland, but there was some trouble about her passport, so she settled at Neuilly, then a village three miles from Paris. “Her habitation here,” says Godwin, “was a solitary house in the midst of a garden, with no other habitant than herself and the gardener, an old man who performed for her many offices of a domestic, and would sometimes contend for the honour of making her bed. The gardener had a great veneration for his guest, and would set before her, when alone, some grapes of a particularly fine sort, which she could not without the greatest difficulty obtain of him when she had any person with her as a visitor. Here it was that she conceived, and for the most part executed, her historical and moral view of the French Revolution, into which she incorporated most of the observations she had collected for her letters, and which was written with more sobriety and cheerfulness than the tone in which they had been commenced. In the evening she was accustomed to refresh herself by a walk in a neighbouring wood, from which her host in vain endeavoured to dissuade her, by recounting divers horrible robberies and murders that had been committed there.”