ABSTRACT
Mary Wollstonecraft’s astute blast signaled the next phase in Mary Hays’s education. Hugh Worthington easily adopted the pattern Hays had established first with Robert Robinson, then Disney, providing her with his writings that they subsequently discussed in person. Wollstonecraft, busy with her own professional and private affairs, made time to meet Hays, first at Joseph Johnson’s convivial shop in St Paul’s Churchyard, and later at her own place at Store Street, Bedford Square. Letters and Essays, Moral, and Miscellaneous were directed to a friendly female audience, mediated through the prisms of predominantly male scholarship and pedagogy. Theophilus Lindsey wrote to thank Hays for her gift of a copy, applauding an achievement that raised his estimation of Eusebia even higher. Hays had succeeded in making her voice heard in the ideological war between reformers and conservatives with each side parsing her book in predictable ways.
