ABSTRACT
On 12 September 1827, Mary Shelley received a letter from ‘Miss Wright of Nashoba – the most wonderful & interesting woman I ever saw’ (Bennett, MWSL, vol. 2, p. 13). Frances Wright Darusmont (1795–1852), born in Scotland but raised in England, was a philanthropist, author, and social reformer. In 1818, she travelled to the United States with her sister Camilla (?1797–1831) and began her pioneering work as an abolitionist and advocate of equal-rights in her adopted country. In 1824, she founded the Nashoba settlement in Tennessee, a community in which slaves could earn the money necessary to buy their own liberty, and where affection shall form the only marriage, kind feeling & kind action the only religion, respect for the feelings & liberties of others the only restraint, & a union of interests the bond of peace & security’ (Abinger MS, Bodleian Library, Dep. c. 516; Shelley and Mary, IV, pp. 1092–5). Although Nashoba failed, Frances Wright continued to agitate in the interests of social and political reform throughout her life.
