Mary Wollstonecraft: A beginner's guide, for fans of Bridgerton
Dearest Readers,
You’ll have seen that a certain Mary Wollstonecraft makes a guest appearance in the first episode of season two of Netflix’s record-smashing Bridgerton.
When besties “Peneloise” are shopping, Eloise laments the lack of substance to Lady Whistledown’s letters and quotes a line from Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792).
If this is the first you’re hearing of Mary Wollstonecraft, we’re here to tell you who she is - and what to read next!
Penelope Featherington (left) and Eloise Bridgerton (right), known to fans as “Peneloise”, in the first episode of season two of Bridgerton, now showing on Netflix
So who was Mary Wollstonecraft?
Often called the foremother of western feminism, Mary Wollstonecraft was a key philosopher of the Enlightenment, and a revolutionary. She overcame limited education and a background of domestic violence to become an educational and political pioneer, and one of the greatest thinkers of the eighteenth century. It’s fair to say Wollstonecraft broke every rule she ever met. Her Vindication of the Rights of Woman demanded gender equality back in 1792, and her earlier Rights of Men (1790) is a blistering hot campaign for what we now call Human Rights. Wollstonecraft cared more about education than anything else, and she also fell in love, a lot. She lived at a hundred miles an hour, never stopped trying to change the world, and died aged only 38 after giving birth to the future author of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley.
Eloise Bridgerton in the first episode of season two of Netflix’s Bridgerton
What to read next?
Letters from Norway (“Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark”). This uncategorisable book is a complete joy. Don’t be put off by the weirdly long title – that’s just how they did it in the 1790s. Letters from Norway is a series of letters that charts Wollstonecraft’s mysterious treasure hunt around the Norwegian coast, looking for a shipment of missing silver, with her toddler for company. This mashup of travelogue/memoir/love letter to humanity contains all the politics and courage of Wollstonecraft at her Enlightenment best, but it’s also a cry from the heart of a woman in pain. You have to read it to believe it.
If you’re a student you can ask your college or university to order Portraits of Wollstonecraft, a mighty tome from the thrilling pen of Wollstonecraft scholar Eileen Hunt.
If you love a historical novel then dive into Samantha Silva’s vivid novel Love and Fury.
You can never go wrong with Lyndall Gordon, her beautiful biography Vindication: A Life of Mary Wollstonecraft throws new light on the magic and mystery of the Silver ship.
Charlotte Gordon intertwines Wollstonecraft and her more famous daughter, Mary Shelley, in her gorgeous dual biography Romantic Outlaws.
Sylvana Tomaselli's comprehensive study of Wollstonecraft's philosophy, Wollstonecraft: Philosophy, Passion and Politics.
Finally, if you want to explore her legacy while hitting the Scandinavian travel path Wollstonecraft-style (with a kid in tow), try Bee Rowlatt’s In Search of Mary.
If you liked this blog, please share it! We are the Wollstonecraft Society and we share her legacy of human rights, courage, and equality in primary schools all over the country - support our work here.