Mary Wollstonecraft, the English author and advocate of women's rights. Her Vindication of the Rights of Woman is the most influential work of early feminist philosophy; she also wrote novels, reviews, and books for children. This guide lists and describes the manuscript materials held by the Pforzheimer Collection that were created by Mary Wollstonecraft, including including original holograph writings and letters.
Content: The Mary Wollstonecraft manuscript material in the Pforzheimer Collection consists of writings and correspondence. The writings include a holograph fragment of her essay, "On Poetry", and a holograph review of Karl Gottlieb Cramer's gothic novel, Albert de Nordenshild. Also held is a contemporary manuscript fragment of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman which could be in Wollstonecraft's hand, convincingly so to some eyes. The bulk of the correspondence is dated between 1787 and 1797. Correspondents include: Catharine Macaulay, the historian; Mary Hays, the novelist; Joseph Johnson, the bookseller; and over a half dozen others. The fifteen letters to Wollstonecraft's friend Jane Arden are transcripts in an early 19th century copybook, possibly in Arden's hand.
Items treated in Shelley and his Circle or in Janet Todd's Collected Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft are noted with reference.
