The Victim of Prejudice - Second Edition by Mary Hays

The Victim of Prejudice - Second Edition by Mary Hays

Mary Hays was an outspoken Radical intellectual in the turbulent decade of the 1790's. She argued vehemently for the need to recognise the moral and rational qualities of women, the necessity of a better system of education for girls, and the importance of giving women without fortunes a career without 'servitude in prostitution.'

The Victim of Prejudice--Hays' second novel, first published in 1799--is a powerful indictment of man-made institutions such as the courts and legislative systems which favour persons of wealth and rank. In the novel the metaphor of women's confinement becomes real as the heroine's worst nightmares, her horrors and sense of helplessness become a physical reality.

The Victim of Prejudiceis of great interest for its strong feminist content, and it is both powerful and moving as a literary work; this edition makes this important late eighteenth-century text again available to a wide readership.

Mary Hays' passionate tale of a girl who is raped but refuses to marry her seducer offers a powerful alternative to Victorian constructions of the 'fallen woman'This early feminist novel, here judiciously edited by Eleanor Ty, should be read by anyone interested in the literary history of the sexualized female, in women's studies, or in British Romantic Literature." - Anne K. Mellor, UCLA

Appendices of the new edition include excerpts from Wollstonecraft, Rousseau, Edward Moore, contemporary reviews, Hays' essays and letters.

Hays, Mary: -

Mary Hays (1759-1843) was an English writer and feminist. Born in London to a family of Protestant dissenters, Hays grew up in a politically and intellectually radical household. In 1777, she me John Eccles, with whom she exchanged dozens of letters despite her family's disapproval of the match. Although they were eventually engaged to be married, Eccles died unexpectedly in 1780. Devastated, Hays turned her back on a life of marriage and motherhood in order to pursue a career as a writer and radical feminist. In 1792, Hays read Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, a groundbreaking work of political philosophy and an early feminist text that argues for the education of women as well as for the need to recognize them as rational, independent beings. Deeply inspired, Hays published her first book, Letters and Essays (1793), and befriended both Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, a writer and political philosopher whose Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793) is considered a pioneering work on anarchism. In 1796, Hays published her most famous work, an epistolary novel titled Memoirs of Emma Courtney, an immediately controversial text that has since been recognized as one of the most important works of fiction of the 1790s. In 1803, having fallen out with Godwin, Hays struggled to publish due to her association with radical figures. Her Female Biography is a detailed work recording the lives and achievements of 294 women from the ancient to the contemporary world. Often remembered more for her connection to Wollstonecraft than for her own literary accomplishments, Hays has recently been recognized as an unjustly overshadowed figure whose fictional, historical, and philosophical works display not only a mastery of the English language, but an unwavering commitment to the feminist cause.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781551112176
ISBN 10	1551112175
Title	The Victim of Prejudice - Second Edition
Author	Mary Hays
Series	Broadview Editions Ser
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Broadview Press Ltd
Year published	1998-10-30
Number of pages	260
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.