Vindication

I knew from history class that Mary Wollstonecraft was an early feminist and the mother of Mary Shelley, the author of "Frankenstein". I had no idea what an incredibly eventful and meaningful life she led until I read this book. Wollstonecraft's childhood was very edgy and anxiety-producing, with an alcoholic and abusive father, and a mother whose own perversity played to his abuse. The reader gets the impression that the mother has to participate in the disfunction to keep a roof over her head. Her loving paternal grandfather, who knew how unreliable his son was, left a will taking care of both his grandaughters and grandson. Wollstonecraft's brother who had been a co-sufferer with his two sisters in the traumatic setting of their childhood, betrayed them by challenging the will in court. He succeeded in overturing the non-traditional will so Wollstonecraft and her sister were left indigent in spite of her grandfather's wishes. In that era, a woman's only option for supporting herself was marriage, witness the desperation of Wollstonecraft's mother. A freethinker, Wollstonecraft continued to walk a tightrope all through life, getting involved sexually with several intellectual leading lights of her age (with results ranging from embarrassing and frustrating to disasterous, just like nowadays), bearing a child out of wedlock, and always lacking in any kind of security in spite of her own prominence in the intellectual arena. The effects of her individualism even resulted in imprisonment in the infamous asylum "Bedlam". This is the amazingly written story of a very interesting woman from history. If you read this, you will definitely not be bored, and you will see what important changes feminism has brought about in a relatively short period of time thanks to people like Mary Wollstonecraft.

Vindication is a fascinating look at the life of a woman born too soon, who was intelligent, spirited, and disillusioned with the man's world she found herself in. Frances Sherwood does a tremendous job of exploring Mary's forays into independence followed by regression into the traditional, accepted woman's role. In answer to other reviews, the sexual situations are not extreme (if you're reading historical fiction, you should assume that the author has the right to imagine what her character was like in every aspect of her life) and help to explain why Mary was continually pulled back into relationships with men...she enjoyed physical intimacy. Unfortunately, she equated intimacy with love and acceptance and like many women then and now, found herself seduced into hoping for "happily ever after", but on her own terms. This book is an insightful look into life in the 18th century for both sexes.

One of the best books I've read. Excellent recreation of the life and times of an exceptional woman.

The blockheadedness & utter insensitivity of the two reviews below, in an open forum such as this, demand a response. Frances Sherwood's reimagining of the life of the brave Mary Wollstonecraft, the woman who wrote the groundsbreaking "Vindication of the Rights of Women," proves quite the equal of her subject. Sherwood brilliantly recreates her protagonist's haunted Enlightenment world, at once alive with new ideas & half-smothered in medieval fears & prejudice. Better still, however, her history goes far beyond the merely correct, investing its conflicts with the chilled yet heightened humanity they must've engendered at the time. The "Mary" of this book has the wallop of her namesake, providing a new testament to women's toil & tragedy while never losing her humor, her smarts, or her desires.

Frances Sherwood masterfully retells the life and times of Mary Wollstonecraft. Friend to William Blake, Henry Fuseli and other artists, her biography is here given distinctly modern treatment. A fascinating woman, she witnessed the French Revolution, spent weeks locked up in infamous Bedlam, and had a series of disastrous love affairs. Sherwood's recreation of 18th-century London draws the reader in completely. Once started, you will find it difficult to put this book down