Original Stories from Real Life, 1791

by Mary Wollstonecraft

When two very poorly-brought-up girls are sent to their relative, Mrs. Mason, after the death of their mother, that woman attempts to reform them through story and conversation.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Animals, Collections, Short Stories

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1788

About the author

Mary Wollstonecraft was an eighteenth century British writer, philosopher, and feminist. Among the general public and specifically among feminists, Wollstonecraft's life has received much more attention than her writing because of her unconventional, and often tumultuous, personal relationships. After two ill-fated affairs, with Henry Fuseli and Gilbert Imlay, Wollstonecraft married the philosopher William Godwin, one of the forefathers of the anarchist movement; they had one daughter, Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. Wollstonecraft died at the age of thirty-eight due to complications from childbirth, leaving behind several unfinished manuscripts.

During her brief career, she wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children's book. Wollstonecraft is best known for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), in which she argues that women are not naturally inferior to men, but appear to be only because they lack education. She suggests that both men and women should be treated as rational beings and imagines a social order founded on reason.


After Wollstonecraft's death, Godwin published a Memoir (1798) of her life, revealing her unorthodox lifestyle, which inadvertently destroyed her reputation for a century. However, with the emergence of the feminist movement at the turn of the twentieth century, Wollstonecraft's advocacy of women's equality and critiques of conventional femininity became increasingly important. Today Wollstonecraft is regarded as one of the founding feminist philosophers, and feminists often cite both her life and work as important influences.

Information courtesy of Wikipedia.org

Reviews

[Abigail · Rating 3 out of 5]

When their mother dies, fourteen-year-old Mary and twelve-year-old Caroline are placed in the home of Mrs. Mason, a near relation who finds them spoiled and prone to bad habits, due to having been raised mostly by servants. This new guardian attempts to reform their manners and morality through example, through story, and through conversation. The lessons imparted range from showing humane kindness to animals - the girls are given a copy of Mrs. Trimmer's Fabulous Histories - to learning to control one's anger and one's appetites. The importance of truthfulness and honor, of compassion for the unfortunate and afflicted, and of respectful conduct, even toward servants, are all covered. The dangers of procrastination and of idleness, the importance of proper dress and deportment, and most of all, the centrality of prayer and devotion - all these are also discussed, with examples from Mrs. Mason's wealth of stories and personal acquaintances. When finally the girls are ready to leave Mrs. Mason, they have markedly improved...

Originally published in 1788, Original Stories From Real Life; with Conversations, Calculated To Regulate the Affections and Form the Mind to Truth and Goodness was reprinted in 1791 with artwork done by William Blake. It is this edition that I read, when Wollstonecraft's book was assigned in the class I took on early children's literature, during the course of my masters. It is a lovely edition, with beautiful artwork from Blake, and it is also a fascinating book, both because it builds upon existing trends in the world of 18th-century British children's literature, and because its author is so well-known for her adult work. I was tickled that the girls are given Trimmer's Fabulous Histories , in the section on the humane treatment of animals, as this demonstrates how influential that earlier work, published only two years before in 1786, already was. The format here, in which girls are educated through dialogue and story, is one common to many books of the period, from Sarah Fielding's 1749 The Governess; or, The Little Female Academy through Mrs. Harriet Ventum's 1801 The Amiable Tutoress; or, The History of Mary and Jane Hornsby: A Tale for Young Persons , and beyond.

Wollstonecraft herself is best known as the author of such works as the 1792 A Vindication of the Rights of Woman , as well as for being the mother of Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein , but she was also deeply involved in the world of education and children's literature. She briefly ran a school with her sister Eliza, published Thoughts on the Education of Daughters in 1787, and worked for a year as the governess to the two young daughters of Lady Kingsborough, in Ireland. Although the post was of short duration - Wollstonecraft did not get on with her employer - it is believed that this experience provided much of the material for Original Stories, the author's only work specifically intended for children. Eventually Wollstonecraft would go on to marry William Godwin, the author, philosopher and book publisher who, after Wollstonecraft's death, set up the publishing house called the 'Juvenile Library,' which would have a significant impact on the history of Anglophone children's literature. It's interesting to note that the year Wollstonecraft spent in Ireland had a great impact on Margaret King Moore, one of the daughters of Lady Kingsborough, who would go on to become Lady Mount Cashell, and eventually, after leaving her husband for another man, "Mrs. Mason," a name she chose in honor of Wollstonecraft's book. She disguised herself as a man, in order to study medicine at the German university of Jena, wrote some of the earliest children's fiction attributed to an Irish author - her Stories of Old Daniel; or, Tales of Wonder and Delight , was published by Godwin in 1808 - and, later in life, played host to Percy and Mary Shelley and Claire Clairmont, when they visited her in Italy in 1820. Although an Anglo-Irish aristocrat, she was republican in her sympathies, and credited Wollstonecraft's teaching and example as having "freed her mind from all superstitions".

So it is that this book, interesting in its own right, is also fascinating as a work that binds together the stories of many fascinating real-life figures. I very much think, as did my instructor in the class I took, that the intertwining stories of these literary luminaries would make a fabulously dramatic miniseries! Recommended to anyone interested in Wollstonecraft's work, or in 18th-century children's literature.

[cait · Rating 2 out of 5]

[read for ENGL 19500] interesting read but lowkey kinda boring. tbh if i was a victorian child and my mother gave me this children’s book to read i would prefer to catch one of the million diseases that afflicted victorian children

[Archie Hamerton]

Loved when it said if a bee stings you and you cry, you have failed the project of the age of reason

[Beth · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well there isn't much to say to be honest with you, this wasn't my kind of text. Older texts such as this one doesn't appeal to me as much, I found it rather flat and not much going on in all honesty. I don't have much to say just because I just didn't like it. So I am going to leave it there because I know its not one I would usually read.
It is highly likely that I will not be picking this back up again.

That's all lovelies! :)

[Nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for ENGL 4443

[Bárbara]

*No rating, read for college

[Shelby]

Would like to read this after it was mentioned in Animal Liberation as a book explicitly designed to encourage kinder attitudes towards animals.

[Rosie · Rating 3 out of 5]

read for uni. this is hilarious. look the title right???? what if i told you that this is a CHILDRENS BOOK

you do you mary

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

did not appreciate the tulip slander in this book. or the amount of dogs that died. besides that the writing was v pretty

[Leon]

read Chapter 1, 7, 9, 24, 35

[Tracey Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

honestly the thing I enjoyed the most of everything she wrote.

[Φερειπείν · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mary Wollstonecraft's original stories.
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Although the didactic tone of the book is not absent, I think it is justified by the object and purpose of the text, including the historical period of its writing. And because the influence of Jean-Jacques Rousseau is evident, he normalizes with his interesting observations and worship of nature the fixed religious points.
I have to admit that Mary Wollstonecraft makes very interesting and deeply humanistic observations, which are not related to theory but can be found practically in behaviors around us, under the expressive sweetness of the author who includes her narrative in a completely personal literary expression.
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Αν και δεν απουσιάζει ο διδακτικός τόνος απ'τις αράδες του βιβλίου δικαιολογείται νομίζω από το αντικείμενο και το σκοπό του κειμένου συμπεριλαμβανομένου στα ανωτέρω και της εποχής γραφής του. Και επειδή η ρουσωική επιρροή είναι εμφανής ομαλοποιεί με τις  ενδιαφέρουσες παρατηρήσεις και τη φυσιολατρεία του τις σταθερά θρησκευτικές επισημάνσεις.
Οφείλω να αναγνωρίσω στην Mary Wollstonecraft πολύ ενδιαφέρουσες και βαθιά ανθρωπιστικες παρατηρήσεις δοσμένες από τη σκοπιά όχι της θεωρίας αλλά του πρακτικού εντοπισμού τους σε συμπεριφορές γύρω μας, κάτω από την εκφραστική γλυκύτητα της δημιουργού που εντάσσει το κείμενο της σε μια εντελώς προσωπική της λογοτεχνική εκφορά.

[Φερειπείν · Rating 3 out of 5]

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Αν και δεν απουσιάζει ο διδακτικός τόνος απ'τις αράδες του βιβλίου δικαιολογείται νομίζω από το αντικείμενο και το σκ��πό του κειμένου συμπεριλαμβανομένου στα ανωτέρω και της εποχής γραφής του. Και επειδή η ρουσωική επιρροή είναι εμφανής ομαλοποιεί με τις  ενδιαφέρουσες παρατηρήσεις και τη φυσιολατρεία του τις σταθερά θρησκευτικές επισημάνσεις.
Οφείλω να αναγνωρίσω στην Mary Wollstonecraft πολύ ενδιαφέρουσες και βαθιά ανθρωπιστικες παρατηρήσεις δοσμένες από τη σκοπιά όχι της θεωρίας αλλά του πρακτικού εντοπισμού τους σε συμπεριφορές γύρω μας, κάτω από την εκφραστική γλυκύτητα της δημιουργού που εντάσσει το κείμενο της σε μια εντελώς προσωπική της λογοτεχνική εκφορά.

[Lulu]

1788 - illustrated by William Blake in 1791

She contended that the nascent middle-class ethos was superior to the court culture represented by fairy tales and to the values of chance and luck found in chapbook stories for the poor