ABSTRACT
Mary Wollstonecroft was respected by her family, where the energy and superiority of her character, which early developed itself, soon enabled her to become a sort of director and umpire. The applause which her “Answer to Burke’s Reflections” had received, naturally tended to increase her confidence in her own powers, and shortly after she proceeded to the composition of her most celebrated work, “The Vindication of the Rights of Women,” the first part of which was begun, carried on, and completed, in the state in which it now remains, in the short period of six weeks. Mary’s aversion to commerce appears to have been increased during this expedition, though she everywhere seems to have been received and treated with the greatest hospitality. The child, whose birth was the cause of her mother’s death, and who inherited her name and her talents, still lives, and is the widow of the celebrated poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley, who was drowned in the Mediterranean.
