Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin

by Elizabeth Robins Pennell

This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1885 edition by W.A. Allen & Co., London.

Genres: Nonfiction, Feminism, Classics, Biography

214 pages, Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

Elizabeth Robins Pennell was an American writer who, for most of her adult life, made her home in London. A recent researcher summed her up as "an adventurous, accomplished, self-assured, well-known columnist, biographer, cookbook collector, and art critic"; in addition, she wrote travelogues, mainly of European cycling voyages, and memoirs, centred on her London salon. Her biographies included the first in almost a century of the proto-feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, one of her uncle the folklorist Charles Godfrey Leland, and one of her friend the painter Whistler. In recent years, her art criticism has come under scrutiny, and her food criticism has been reprinted. She was married to Joseph Pennell.

Reviews

[Benjamin Stahl · Rating 3 out of 5]

An old but entertaining biography on Mary Wollstonecraft, one of the early and (in my opinion) better examples of what a feminist should be.

[Tom Baikin-O'hayon · Rating 4 out of 5]

a good biography although sometimes a bit too apologetic

[Dara Salley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book not so much because of the author’s skills, but because of the subject matter. I was introduced to Mary Wollstonecraft a few months ago when I read “A Vindication of the Rights of Women”. I found that book heartbreaking in the mildness of its requests for women to be treated with a modicum of dignity. Now, reading this biography during the same time that I participated in the Women’s March on Washington has truly fired my admiration for Mary Wollstonecraft. Any modern woman, reading her biography, cannot help but ask herself, “What would I have done in her situation? How would I have struggled against the incredible prejudice and hardship that she faced?” I doubt that many of us would have been as strong as Wollstonecraft.

Reading this outdated biography made me want to read a newer, more complete biography. Imagine my joy when I found out that Claire Tomalin, one of my favorite biographers, has written a biography of Mary Wollstonecraft. That book is going right to the top of my “to-read” list.