Mary Wollstonecraft by Janet Todd
First published in 1976, this was the first comprehensive annotated bibliography of Mary Wollstonecraft's works and most of the critical and biographical comments on her in English written between 1788 and 1975. It is designed both as a research tool for scholars and students and as a revelation of the quantity and variety of comment. The book is divided into three main chronological time periods of publication date and suggests the vagaries of Wollstonecraft's posthumous reputation and indicates the peaks and troughs of interest. Known as an eighteenth-century British writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights, Mary Wollstonecraft has received much critical attention with particular interest in her unorthodox lifestyle of the time and is now regarded as one of the founding feminist philosophers.
Throughout this humane and absorbing biography, Todd usefully places the writings, like A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, in their historical context, but in the end she finds Wollstonecraft's life and her letters more modern in their outspoken sensibility than her formal literary legacyThe New Yorker The only full-length scholarly biography to date, it is full of fascinating detail, absorbing, and often surprising. The New Republic The hard work and family values attributed to the middle class hardly obtained in the Wollstonecraft entourage, as Janet Todd makes clear in this thorough biography...Todd excels at depicting her subject's evolving personality and layered intellect. Washington Post Todd... draws heavily on Wollstonecraft's letters in this thoughtful biography... Wollstonecraft traveled uncharted waters: her voice, though egotistical, is unquestionably modern, a ' consciousness... sure of its significance, individuality and authenticity. Appropriate where biographies and women's studies are popular. Booklist Todd brings [Wollstonecraft] back to life in all her splendid contradictions, without condescension, idealization or, happily, without recourse to intrusive psychologizing. Publishers Weekly Todd tells the story of Mary Wollstonecraft's extraordinary life with calm judiciousness, an excellent sense of the social, intellectual, and economic spheres in which her subject lived and wrote, and a good eye for small but telling details. Times Literary Supplement Against the richly detailed tapestry of her times, Janet Todd has stitched the bright, vivid, restless, and agitated figure of one of the most fascinating and controversial thinkers of her time and proved -- through the sympathy, understanding, and intelligence with which she portrays her -- that she remains fascinating today. -- Anita Desai Todd reveals all in her top-notch and fascinating portrait, Mary Wollstonecraft: A Revolutionary Life. Library Journal A much longer revision of theories about nationalism and nations is now needed, to complement the brilliant destructive assaults in... After the Empire. London Review of Books Todd writes with verve, authority...and rhetorical grace. -- Anne K. Mellor Signs Winter 2005
Janet Todd is Research Professor of English at the University of Glasgow. She is the editor of A Wollstonecraft Anthology and her writings include The Sign of Angelica: Women, Writing, and Fiction, 1600-1800.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780231121842 |
| ISBN 10 | 0231121849 |
| Title | Mary Wollstonecraft |
| Author | Janet Todd |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Columbia University Press |
| Year published | 2000-08-15 |
| Number of pages | 538 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |