Betwixt and Between: The Biographies of Mary Wollstonecraft

by Brenda Ayres

Overview

Betwixt and Between identifies the biases, errors and ambiguities that have run rampant in the biographies on Mary Wollstonecraft, many of them left unchecked and perpetuated from publication to publication. Brenda Ayres investigates the agenda, problems and strengths of eighteen critical biographies, beginning with William Godwin’s Memoirs (1798), ending with Charlotte Gordon’s Romantic Outlaws (2015) and including ten lesser-known biographies. Betwixt and Between synthesizes the biographies, exposes gaps and contradictions, and attempts to fill and reconcile them, supplying in the process considerable information on Wollstonecraft that has never before been published.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781783086849
Publisher:	Anthem Press
Publication date:	06/15/2017
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Brenda Ayres is a full professor of nineteenth-century English literature, member of the graduate faculty and Assistant Director of Honors at Liberty University, USA. Publishing extensively in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature, she has written over 170 articles and 26 books including What Dog Lovers Know about God (2016); Becoming Mary Wollstonecraft (2017); Mary Wollstonecraft and Religion: Sojourner in a Strange Land (2017); and Biographical Misrepresentations of British Women Writers: A Hall of Mirrors and the Long Nineteenth Century (2017).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Abbreviations xi

Chronology of Wollstonecraft's Life xiii

Introduction: The Betwixt and Between Life of Mary Wollstonecraft 1

1 William Godwin's Memoirs of the Author of "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" (1798): A Political Philosopher's Autobiography 15

2 Mary Hays's "Memoirs of Mary Wollstonecraft" (1800): The Second of a New Genus 33

3 C. Kegan Paul's Mary Wollstonecraft: Letters to Imlay, with Prefatory Memoir by C. K. Paul (1879): The Victorian Gentleman 43

4 Elizabeth Robins Pennell's Mary Wollstonecraft (1884): A Victorian Feminist 51

5 Ralph M. Wardle's Mary Wollstonecraft: A Critical Biography (1951): Rosie-the-Riveter Wollstonecraft 65

6 Eleanor Flexner's Mary Wollstonecraft (1972): The Very Insensible Wollstonecraft 77

7 Claire Tomalin's The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft (1974): Wollstonecraft with Sparkle 89

8 Emily Sunstein's A Different Face: The Life of Mary Wollstonecraft (1975): Not-so-liberated Woman 103

9 Margaret Tims's Mary Wollstonecraft: A Social Pioneer (1976): Wollstonecraft's Life: The Stuff of Novels 117

10 Gary Kelly's Revolutionary Feminism: Vie Mind and Career of Mary Wollstonecraft (1992): A Literary Revolutionary 129

11 Janet M. Todd's Mary Wollstonecraft: A Revolutionary Life (2000): The "Impudent and Imprudent" Wollstonecraft 135

12 Miriam Brody's Mary Wollstonecraft: Mother of Women's Rights (2000): A Befitting Betwixt and Between Biography 143

13 Diane Jacobs's Her Own Woman: The Life of Mary Wollstonecraft (2001): Never Just Her Own Woman 151

14 Caroline Franklin's Mary Wollstonecraft: A Literary Life (2004): "The Education of an Educator" 159

15 Lyndall Gordon's Vindication: A Life of Mary Wollstonecraft (2005): Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue 169

16 Julie A. Carlson's England's First Family: Mary Wollstonecraft, William Godwin, Mary Shelley (2007): "Con/fusions of Fact and Fiction" 183

17 Andrew Cayton's Love in the Time of Revolution: Transatlantic Literary Radicalism and Historical Change, 1793-1818 (2013): "A Subject of George III" 193

18 Charlotte Gordon's Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter (2015): Like Mother, Like Daughter 201

Epilogue 213

Notes 219

Bibliography 233

Index 253

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“This book offers a fascinating perspective on more than two centuries of Wollstonecraft biography. Ayres writes with a scholarly eye, tracing the different versions of Wollstonecraft that have emerged over the years and interrogates the evidence on which they are based.”
—Jane Hodson, Professor of English Language and Literature, University of Sheffield, UK

“Betwixt and Between is a bracing critical survey of how frequently biographers distort or even discount facts when depicting the life of Mary Wollstonecraft. In its desire to set the record straight, this book adds to our knowledge of Wollstonecraft’s complicated life, and charts her changing significance over the course of two centuries to scholars whose deep investments in her life tell a history of its own.”
—Julie A. Carlson, Professor of English, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA

Editorial Reviews

European Romantic Review

People matters

LSE

From the Publisher