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A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, by Mary Wollstonecraft, 1792

Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman is one of the earliest treatises in the English language that advocates gender equality. Published in 1792, this landmark work in philosophy chiefly advances arguments for the equality of education for both sexes at a time when education was usually reserved for men. 

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) was a renowned political philosopher during the Age of Enlightenment, an 18^th-century period when established beliefs began to be questioned. She was prompted to write A Vindication against the tumultuous background of the French Revolution. This work was partly a rebuttal to Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord’s 1791 pamphlet to the French National Assembly that asserted that men should receive public education and women, domestic education. Wollstonecraft went so far as to dedicate her work to him, and in her dedication states that “my main argument is built on this simple principle, that if she be not prepared by education to become the companion of man, she will stop the progress of knowledge and virtue.”

A Vindication is a key foundational work of feminist thought whose influence endures.

Details

• Complete title: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects
• The typeface uses the now obsolete “long s,” which looks like a lower case “f” without the bar but is pronounced like an “s.”
• Wollstonecraft’s daughter was Mary Shelley, an English writer best known as the author of Frankenstein.
• A digital reproduction of this book is available.