Vindication

by Lyndall Gordon

  Blair, Hugh, Lectures in Rhetoric, 3 vols (London, 1785)

  Blood, Frances (Fanny). Two letters to Elizabeth and Everina Wollstonecraft (1784–5) Abinger: Dep. b. 210 (9)

  Boswell, James, Life of Johnson, eds Claude Rawson, Marshall Waingrow, Bruce Redford Gordon Turnbull (Edinburgh and Yale University Presses, 1994–8)

  Brightwell, Cecilia Lucy, Memorials of the Life of Amelia Opie (London: Longman, 1854)

  Browning, Robert, ‘Mary Wollstonecraft and Fuseli’, in Jocoseria (London: Smith Elder, 1883), 45–9

  Burgh, James, The Dignity of Human Nature (London, 1754)

  ——Thoughts on Education (London 1747)

  Burke, Edmund, Reflections on the Revolution in France, ed. Conor Cruise O’Brien (Penguin Books, 1968)

  Burney, Fanny, The Early Journals and Letters 1768–1791, eds Lars E. Troide and Stewart J. Cooke, 3 vols (Oxford: Clarendon, 1988–94)

  Butler, Marilyn, ed., Burke, Paine, Godwin, and the Revolution Controversy (Cambridge University Press, 1984). Excerpts from pro- and counter-revolutionary writings, including Wollstonecraft’s, together with a perceptive introduction

  Byron, George Gordon, Lord, Letters and Journals, 12 vols, ed. Leslie Marchand (London: John Murray, 1973–82)

  Cary, John, Cary’s Survey of the Country Fifteen Miles Round London (London, 1786)

  Chesterfield, Philip Stanhope, Lord, Letters of Lord Chesterfield to his Son (1774)

  Christie, Thomas, Letters on the French Revolution (London: Joseph Johnson, 1791) Clarke, John, Practical Essays on the Management…of Labour; and on the Inflammatory and Febrile Diseases of Lying-in Women (1793)

  Clemit et al, Lives of the Great Romantics, III: Godwin, Wollstonecraft & Mary Shelley by their Contemporaries, i: Godwin, ed. Pamela Clemit; ii: Wollstonecraft, ed. Harriet Jump; iii: Mary Shelley, ed. Betty T. Bennett (London: Pickering & Chatto, 1999)

  Condorcet, Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, marquis de, Tom Paine, et al Committee for Public Instruction, (Paris: 1793) Published record of day-to-day discussions. Mezzanine floor, reading room, Archives Nationales, Paris

  ——essay, ‘On the Admission of Women to the Rights of Citizenship’ (preceding Olympe de Gouges and MW), trans. Alice Drysdale Vickery (London: G. Standring, 1893)

  Cotton, Mrs. Letter of condolence to WG (18 Mar. 1800) recalling MW. Abinger: Dep.b. 214/3: ‘I never met her fellow

  Cowper, William, The Correspondence of William Cowper, ed. Thomas Wright (London, 1904)

  Crabb Robinson, Henry, On Books and their Writers, ed. Edith J. Morley (London: Dent 1938)

  Cutler, Revd Manasseh, Journals and Correspondence, 2 vols, ed. W. P. Cutler and J. P. Life (Cincinnati, 1888)

  Darwin, Erasmus, The Botanic Garden (London: Joseph Johnson, 1791)

  ——Plan for the Conduct of Female Education in Boarding Schools (London: Joseph Johnson, 1797)

  Dazzi, Cristina, ‘Humor Inglese: Un Singolare Manuscritto di Mary Shelley sull’ universita di Pisa’, Bollettino Storico Pisano Pisa Historical Gazette, lxviii (1999), 113–20

  Debates on the Reports of the Committee of Secrecy (London, 1794)

  de Montolière, Baroness, Caroline de Lichtfield, novel, trans. 1786 by Thomas Holcroft, a radical writer who was part of the Godwin–Johnson circle. Bodleian Library

  Dowden, Edward, Life of Shelley (London, 1886)

  Ellefsen, Peder, as accused in judicial inquiries. Kristiansand State Archive, Norway: the crew’s testimony; Kristiansand Town Magistrate’s report to the Danish Chamber of Commerce, Dec 1794; police interrogation in Arendal, 28 and 30 Apr. 1795; letter from Imlay to Backman from Le Havre; Imlay’s instructions to Ellefsen on 13 Aug 1794

  ——Deed of sale for Imlay’s ship the Margrethe after Ellefsen’s arrival in Norway, Aust-Agders Archives, Arendal, Norway Eton College Register 1753–1790, ed. R. H. Austen-Leigh (Eton: Spottiswoode, 1921)

  Exeter College, Oxford, archival records (King family). Index of entrants 1770–1877 in alphabetical order according to year: C.II.20; Entrance Book 1768–1812: C.II.21; Bursary Archives: King, Caroline N.I.3; King, Henry: N.I.3; King, John: L.V.8; King, Richard: M.IV.7

  Farington, Joseph, The Farington Diary [13 July 1793–24 Aug. 1802], ed. James Greig (London: Hutchinson, 1923)

  Fawcett, Millicent Garrett, Introduction to centenary edition of A Vindication of the Rights of Women (London, 1891). In this influential essay, the suffragist leader rehabilitates and co-opts MW as founding figure for the Cause, ‘the great movement of which her book was in England almost the first conscious expression’–a movement Mrs Fawcett sees as significant historically as the Reformation and Democracy. She commends MW’s ‘fearlessness’, her dismissal of the slave/queen models of womanhood, her refusal of double standards, and her ‘sound heart and clear head’

  Fordyce, James, Sermons to Young Women (1765)

  Foss, Frithjof, Arendals byes historie (1893; repr. 1990s). Copy in Aust-Agders Archives Arendal, Norway

  [Fuseli] Füssli, Johann Heinrich, Sämtliche Gedichte, eds Martin Bircher and Karl S. Guthke (Zurich, 1973)

  Fuseli, Henry, (Johann Heinrich Füssli), Letters to William Roscoe. Liverpool Record Office (3 refer to MW)

  ——The Mind of Henry Fuseli: Selections from his Writings, ed. and intro. Eudo C. Mason (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1951). With thanks to artist and art historian Timothy Hyman for his copy

  Gardiner, Jane, Letter to William Godwin (15 Jan. 1799). Abinger: Dep. b. 214/3

  ——English Grammar (1799; repr. 1808, 1809)

  ——Exercises Adapted to the English Grammar (London: Longman, 1801). No copies in the British or Bodleian Libraries. I tried in Yorkshire libraries–no luck. (Durant, too, searched in vain for letters MW is said to have written to a friend, Miss Massey, printed by Jane Gardiner in a volume called ‘English Exercises’. Eleven Letters from Beverley, Bath and London.)

  ——Sometime after 1803 (date of watermark) Gardiner or emanuensis copied out fifteen of MW’s letters into a notebook, the only primary documents to survive from the first twenty-one years of her life. Pforzheimer Collection, New York Public Library

  ——An Excursion from London to Dover (1806), 2 vols. Bodleian Library

  Gardiner, Everilda Anne, Recollections of a Beloved Mother. The subject is MW’s Yorkshire schoolfriend, Jane Arden (London, 1842)

  Genlis, Stephanie de, Memoirs (London, 1825)

  Gisborne, Maria, and Edward E. Williams, Shelley’s Friends: Their Journals and Letters, ed Frederick L. Jones (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1951)

  Godwin, William. Unpublished letters. Abinger

  ——Godwin and Mary: Letters, ed. Ralph M. Wardle (Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas Press, 1966; London: Constable, 1967)

  ——Autobiographical fragments in Collected Novels and Memoirs of William Godwin, i, intro. Marilyn Butler and Mark Philp (London: Pickering & Chatto, 1991)

  ——Political and Philosophical Writings of William Godwin, ed. Mark Philp (London: Pickering & Chatto, 1993)

  ——Cursory Strictures. Pamphlet (1794). Copy in Beinecke

  ——Caleb Williams (1794; Oxford University Press: Worlds Classics)

  ——Bible Stories (London: R. Phillips, 1803). A copy of the almost vanished first edition of vol. i, with the educative Preface (echoing Wollstonecraft, and which Godwin wished to have included in his collected works), is in Smith College, Northampton, Mass.: Mortimer Rare Book Room, Neilson Library: 371.342 C436e 1803 bi. Amongst the fine collection of Godwin’s Juvenile Library publications, including MountCashell’s below

  ——Life of Lady Jane Grey (London: M. J. Godwin, 1806). The accompanying portrait of this pale, intellectual girl, aged about fourteen, looks rather like MaryWollstonecraft Godwin, then aged nine

  ————-Memoirs of the Author of ‘The Rights of Woman’, ed. and intro. Richard Holmes(Penguin Classics, 1987)

  ——Obituary for Joseph Johnson, Morning Chronicle (London, 1809)

  Greg
ory, John, A Father’s Legacy to his Daughters (London, 1774)

  Hammond, George, British Minister to the US, warning letter to Foreign SecretaryLord Grenville (9 Jan. 1792) about rumoured activities of Imlay associate James Wilkinson in Kentucky. (These abortive preparations for a coup against Spanish colonies predate Imlay’s similar plot instigated in Paris, Dec. 1792.) PRO, London: FO4/14

  Hays, Mary, The Memoirs of Emma Courtney (1796; London: Routledge/Pandora, 1987)

  ——Love Letters, ed. A. Wedd (London, 1925)

  —— Letter to Godwin (1797). Abinger

  ——Letters. Pforzheimer Collection, New York Public Library

  ——‘Memoirs of Mary Wollstonecraft’ (unsigned obituary), in The Annual Necrology for 1797–8 (London: Phillips, 1800), 411–60. Preceded by a brief notice in Monthly Magazine, iv (Sept. 1797), 232–3. Clemit et al, Lives of the Great Romantics, III, ii, ed. Jump, 5–8, 189–92

  Hazlitt, William, The Spirit of the Age; or Contemporary Portraits (London: Henry Colburn, 1825; repr. New York: Dutton, 1955). See ‘William Godwin’, 29–53, and ‘The Late Mr. Horne Tooke’, 99–120, in 1825 edn

  ——‘On the Old Age of Artists’, in The Plain Speaker: Opinions on Books, Men and Things(London: Henry Colburn, 1826). Searing paragraph on Fuseli

  ——‘Memoir of Henry Fuseli’, Pamphlets on British Art, xviii (London: A. & R. Spottiswoode, c. 1926)

  ——(ed.) Autobiography of Thomas Holcroft (London, 1816)

  Hewlett, John, Sermons (London: Joseph Johnson, 1786)

  Imlay, Gilbert. Imlay Family Papers, Alexander Library, Rutgers University

  ——Records of the Imlay family (including those serving in the Revolution). Van Kirk Collection, Allentown Public Library, NJ

  ——A Topographical Description of the Western Territory of North America (London: Debrett, 1792; repr. 1797)

  ——The Emigrants (London: Debrett, 1793; repr. Penguin Classics, 1998). Extensive background, map and contexts in intro. by W. M. Verhoeven and Amanda Gilroy(eds)

  ——versus George James. Court case heard by Lord Loughborough in Leicester (10 and 27 Feb. 1798). PRO, London: C12/2188/14

  ——Index to Revolutionary War Service Records, transcribed by Virgil D. White (WaynesboroTenn.: National Historical Publishing Co. 1995)

  ——Casualty book of Forman’s Regiment, NJ State Archives: Monmouth county war records, MS 4126

  ——Records of speculations in Kentucky. The Filson Historical Society, especially the May Papers. Louisville, Ky, has deeds and correspondence; Four entries for Kentucky land with helpful dates listed in Willard Rouse Jillson, Old Kentucky Entries and Deeds: A Complete Index to All of the Earliest Land Entries, Military Warrants, Deeds and Wills of the Commonwealth of Kentucky (Filson Club Publications, no. 34; first publ. Louisville, Ky, 1926; repr. 1969)

  ——Letter to Henry Lee (21 Apr. 1784). Beinecke Library’s General MSS Miscellany, Group 2444, item 5-1

  ——Two secret plans for the French capture of Spanish Louisiana. Archives des Affaires Étrangères, Louisiane et Florides, 1792–1803, vii, doc. 1. ‘Observations du Cap. Imlay’ trans. in Documents section of Annual Report of the American Historical Association, i(1896), 953–4. Second and much longer ‘Mémoire sur la Louisiane’ trans. amongst associated ‘Documents on the Relations of France to Louisiana, 1792–1795’ in American Historical Review, iii (Apr. 1898), 491–4. See also 490–503, 508, 651, 660. Includes details of Barlow’s involvement and separate proposal

  ——Power of attorney for Mary Wollstonecraft and her instructions for the Scandinavian journey. Pforzheimer Collection: microfilm of Abinger Papers: reel 9

  Johnson, I. B. Recollections of MW in Paris during 1793, in letter to Godwin. Abinger: Dep. b. 214/3. Clemit et al., Lives of the Great Romantics, III, ii, ed. Jump, 13–16

  Johnson, Joseph. Letterbook (1795–1810). Copies of c. 240 outgoing letters to various recipients, including many of the writers he published–Darwin, Priestley, MariaEdgeworth–and also significant letters to Charles Wollstonecraft in America. Pforzheimer Collection

  ——Letter to William Godwin. Abinger: Dep. b. 210/3

  ——‘A few facts’. Posthumous reminiscences of MW. Abinger: Dep. b. 210/3. KP, i, 193–4, and Clemit et al, Lives of the Great Romantics, III, ii, ed. Jump, 9–12

  ——Note on Mary Wollstonecraft’s death to Henry Fuseli. Abinger: Dep. b. 210(3)

  Jones, Vivien (ed.), Women in the Eighteenth Century: Constructions of Femininity (London: Routledge, 1990). Sets MW in the contemporary context of conduct books, educational treatises and women’s rights

  Juvenile Library. Magazine for boys and girls, 3 vols (1800–1). Berg Collection, New York Public Library

  Kames, Henry Home, Elements of Criticism (1762; repr. New York: Twayne, 1970)

  ————-Loose Hints upon Education (repr. Routledge, 1993)

  King-Harmon Papers, Public Record Office of Northern Ireland: D/4168

  Knapp, Samuel, ‘Female Biography: Containing Notices of Distinguished Women’, in Dictionary of Christian Biography (Philadelphia: Leary & Getz, 1834). Portrait of MW’s American sister-in-law of the same name

  Knowles, John, The Life of Henry Fuseli, 2 vols (Henry Colburn, 1831)

  Lawes Resolutions of Women’s Rights, or the Lawes Provision for Women (1652)

  The Laws Respecting Women, as they regard their natural rights…in which their interests and duties as daughters, wards, heiresses, spinsters, sisters, wives, widows, mothers, legatees, executrixes, etc, are ascertained and enumerated (Joseph Johnson, 1777; repr. Oceana Press, 1973)

  Levy, Darlene Gay, Harriet Branson Applewhite and Mary Durham Johnson, eds, Women in Revolutionary Paris 1789–1795: Selected Documents (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1979)

  Macaulay (Graham), Catharine, Letters on Education (London, 1790)

  Marie and Margrethe (the silver ship). Shipping records for 1794–5 in the Landsarkivet, Gothenburg. In the Riksarkivet, Stockholm see Kommerskollegium: Huvadarkivet C II c Fribrevsdiarier (1758–1831), xxxvi (1795), No. 669, and Fribrevshandlingar(1775–1831) Huvudarkivet F II b: vol. 143.

  ——Testimony of the crew, Dec. 1794, Kristiansand, Norway

  ——Records and hearsay in archives of Oslo and Arendal, Norway

  ——A magnificent collection of Schleswig-Holstein silver in the North German Museum in Altona, the final destination of MW’s journey in 1795, testifies to a significant trade in silver at that time

  ——Charges for the ship in Strömstad (June–Sept. 1795, the precise period of Wollstonecraft’s journey to Scandinavia and Hamburg). Strömstads Rådhusrätt och Magistrat, vol. A IV a: 9, pp. 255–6, 291–312, in Landsarkivet, Gothenburg

  Mathias, T. J., ‘The Shade of Alexander Pope’, repr. Clemit et al, Lives of the Great Romantics, III, ii: Wollstonecraft

  Milton, John, Paradise Lost (a favourite source of quotation for MW)

  Monthly Magazine and American Review for 1799: ‘Reflections on the character of MaryWollstonecraft Godwin’ by ‘L. M.’ (New York, 1800), 330–5. Shows the adverse impact of W. G’s Memoirs and WW on an admirer of MW.

  More, Hannah, Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education (London, 1799)

  Morris, Gouverneur, Papers (of the American Minister in Paris during the Terror). Huge, largely untapped trove. Columbia University, New York

  ——Diary and Letters, 2 vols, ed. Anne Cary Morris (London: Kegan Paul, 1889)

  ——A Diary of the French Revolution, 2 vols, ed. Beatrix C. Davenport (repr. Freeport, New York: Books for Libraries, 1971)

  Mount Cashell, Margaret (King Moore). Private library of Andrea and Cristina Dazzi, San Marcello Pistoiese, Italy. In 1958, Mount Cashell’s biographer, McAleer, reports that a search of the hundred-room house at San Marcello failed to discover missing papers, especially her letters from Mary Wollstencraft

  ——Cini Papers, Pforzheimer Library, New York Public Library

  ——Three anonymous political pa
mphlets against Union. Copies in the National Library of Ireland, Dublin: ‘A few words in favour of Ireland’ (1799); ‘Reply to a ministerial pamphlet entitled “Considerations upon the state of public affairs in the year 1799: Ireland” (1799); and ‘A hint to the inhabitants of Ireland. By a native’(1800)

  ——A few letters in 1805 to her Irish lawyer, Scully, in Brian MacDermot, ed., The Catholic Question in Ireland and England 1798–1822: The Papers of Denys Scully (Irish Academic Press, 1988)

  ——Revelations about her background and history for her unknowing youngest daughters, Laurette and Nerina Tighe (1819). Pforzheimer Collection. Shelley and his Circle, viii, 909–11

  *——Undated, untitled fictional monologue/travelogue of a Frenchman in the German states, in French, discovered and transcribed by Cristina Dazzi. Private Dazzi library, San Marcello Pistoiese

  ——Stories for Little Boys and Girls, in Words of One Syllable(London: M. J. Godwin, 1810). Mortimer Rare Book Room, Smith College: 371.342/C426e/1810mos. Extremely rare and not in the great Opie Collection. Puzzling dedication to ‘N- and her little friends’. We might assume this was her child Nerina, but this first edn was publ. in 1810 and Nerina was not born until 1815

  ——Stories of Old Daniel (London: M. J. Godwin, 1807) and Continuation of the Stories of Old Daniel (1820) . There were fourteen editions by 1868. An Italian translation, Racconti del vecchio Daniele per dilettare ed isruire la gioventu; continuazione dei racconti del vecchio Daniele(Pisa: Nistri, 1829) was reprinted a number of times. The author’s anonymity remained unbroken. The Bodleian catalogue, before it went on-line in 2000, listed these stories under Charles Lamb, with a note to say that they had previously been catalogued under the fictitious name of ‘Daniel’

  ——The Sisters of Nansfield: A Tale for Two Young Women, 2 vols (London: Longman, 1824). A novel published anonymously

  ——‘Memorandums’. Medical care of children. Pforzheimer Collection: Cini Papers, folder 17

  ——Advice to Young Mothers on the Physical Education of Children (London: Longman, 1823). A revolutionary medical book, as some doctors recognised, published anonymously as mere advice ‘by a grandmother’