The Celebrated Mary Astell: An Early English Feminist

by Ruth Perry

'This richly documented biography of Mary Astell, pioneer thinker and writer, will become a central text in the history of feminist thought. In probing Astell's ideological contradictions as a political conservative and a feminist analyst, Ruth Perry supplies us with an authentic, rare portrait of late-seventeenth-century life and the female intellectual experience.' - Moira Ferguson, University of Nebraska, Lincoln

Genres: History, Biography, Biography Memoir

549 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1986

Reviews

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mary Astell was an interesting woman--an early feminist who wrote about women's education and defended their intellects and capacity for involvement in public life and public discourse from an essentially conservative point of view. Not a whole lot is known about her private life, so much of the book is about the larger cultural and political contextin which she lived and worked (political and religious discourse, women's educational opportunities and legal positions, life in Chelsea in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, women's friendships, etc). Includes substantial appendices with full texts of her letters and her poetry, plus material on her aristocratic female friends.