Mary Wollstonecraft

By MaryWoll

  • Mary Wollstonecraft is born

    Mary Wollstonecraft is born in the Spitalfields neighborhood of London. She is the second of seven children of John Edward and Elizabeth Dickson Wollstonecraft.

  • Gets her first job

    Wollstonecraft moves to Bath to take a position as a companion to an elderly woman named Sarah Dawson.

  • Mother dies

    Wollstonecraft's mother Elizabeth dies. Her father remarries immediately, and Wollstonecraft moves in with the family of Fanny Blood.

  • Opens School for Girls

    Fanny Blood, Eliza and Mary Wollstonecraft start a school for girls in Newington Green.

  • School is shut down

    Wollstonecraft returns to London and finds that her school has encountered massive financial problems in her absence. She is forced to close it the following year.

  • Thoughts on the Education of Daughters

    Inspired by her experiences with her school, Wollstonecraft pens the feminist tract Thoughts on the Education of Daughters, a polemic about women's education.

  • Publishes novel

    Wollstonecraft publishes her first and only novel, Mary, A Fiction. She also publishes a children's book entitled Original Stories from Real Life.

  • The French Revolution Begins

    The French Revolution begins, inspiring Wollstonecraft and other English intellectuals. She publishes The Female Reader under a male pseudonym.

  • A Vindication of the Rights of Man

    Wollstonecraft pens a rebuttal to Edmund Burke's anti-revolution treatise Reflections on the Revolution in France. A Vindication of the Rights of Man brings Wollstonecraft her first real attention as a writer.

  • A Vindication of the Rights of Women

    Wollstonecraft publishes her most famous work, a manifesto arguing for greater equality between men and women.

  • First Daughter is born

    Wollstonecraft gives birth to Fanny Imlay, her daughter with Gilbert Imlay.

  • Publishes political tract

    Wollstonecraft publishes a political tract, An Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution.

  • Idk man

    She publishes Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark, a travelogue of her voyage to Scandinavia the previous year.

  • Marriage

    Mary Wollstonecraft marries William Godwin at London's St. Pancras Church.

  • Mary Shelly is born

    Wollstonecraft gives birth to Mary Godwin. Mary Godwin grows up to marry poet Percy Shelley. She goes on to write the novel Frankenstein.

  • Mary Wollstonecraft dies

    Dies due to childbirth complications.

  • Memoir Published

    William Godwin publishes several posthumous pieces of his wife's writing. He also publishes her biography, Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Women.