The Routledge Guidebook to Wollstonecraft and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Mary Wollstonecraft was one of the greatest philosophers and writers of the Eighteenth century. During her brief career, she wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children's book. Her most celebrated and widely-read work is A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. This Guidebook introduces: Wollstonecraft’s life and the background to A Vindication of the Rights of Woman The ideas and text of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman Wollstonecraft’s enduring influence in philosophy and our contemporary intellectual life It is ideal for anyone coming to Wollstonecraft’s classic text for the first time and anyone interested in the origins of feminist thought.

Acknowledgments Series Editor Preface Author Preface 1.The First of a New Genus 2. The rights of woman and national education 3. Brutes or rational beings? 4. Relative virtues and meretricious slaves 5.Abject slaves and capricious 6. Angels and Beasts7. Taste and unclouded reason 8. Rational fellowship or slavish obedience? Love, marriage and family 9. Concluding reflections Bibliography Index

Sandrine Berges is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Bilkent, Turkey.