Pioneers in life writing, Mary Wollstonecraft, author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), and Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein (1818 ), are now widely regarded as two of the leading writers of the Romantic period. They are both responsible for opening up new possibilities for women in genres traditionally dominated by men.
This volume brings together essays on Wollstonecraft’s and Shelley’s life writing by some of the most prominent scholars in Canada, Australia, and the United States. It also includes a full-length play by award-winning Canadian playwright Rose Scollard. Together, the essays and the play explore the connections between mother and daughter, between writing and life, and between criticism and creation. They offer a new understanding of two important writers, of a literary period, and of emergent modes of life writing.
Essayists include Judith Barbour, Betty T. Bennett, Anne K. Mellor, Charles E. Robinson, Eleanor Ty, and Lisa Vargo. Among the works discussed are Wollstonecraft’s Vindication, Letters from Norway, and Maria; or, The Wrongs of Woman; William Godwin’s Memoirs of Wollstonecraft; and Shelley’s Frankenstein, The Last Man, Ladore, and Rambles in Germany and Italy.
- Bibliography, etc. Note
- Includes bibliographical references and index
- Control Number Identifier
- CaOOCEL
- Dewey Decimal Classification Number
- 828/.609
- Dewey Decimal Edition Number
- 21
- General Note
- Issued as part of the desLibris books collection
- ISBN
- 9780889209435 0889203636
- LCCN
- PR5841.W8
- LCCN Item number
- Z755 2001eb
- Modifying agency
- CaBNVSL
- Original cataloging agency
- CaBNVSL
- Physical Description | Extent
- 1 electronic text (x, 330 p.)
- Published in
- Canada
- Publisher or Distributor Number
- CaOOCEL
- Rights
- Access restricted to authorized users and institutions
- System Control Number
- (CaBNVSL)gtp00521612 (OCoLC)728026450 (CaOOCEL)402679
- System Details Note
- Mode of access: World Wide Web
- Transcribing agency
- CaBNVSL
Table of Contents
- Table of Contents 6
- Acknowledgements 8
- Abbreviations 10
- Introduction 12
- The Politics of Autobiography in Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley 30
- The Personal Pronoun as Political: Stylistics of Self-Reference in the Vindications 42
- The Power of the Unnamed You in Mary Wollstonecraft’s Letters Written during a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark 54
- Reveries of Reality: Mary Wollstonecraft’s Poetics of Sensibility 66
- “The History of My Own Heart”: Inscribing Self, Inscribing Desire in Wollstonecraft’s Letters from Norway 80
- (Un)Confinements: The Madness of Motherhood in Mary Wollstonecraft’s The Wrongs of Woman 96
- Mary Wollstonecraft and Harriet Jacobs: Self Possessions 110
- Memoirs Discourse and William Godwin’s Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman 124
- A Mother’s Daughter: An Intersection of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman 138
- Mary Shelley: Writing/Other Women in Godwin’s Life 150
- “Unconceiving Marble”: Anatomy and Animation in Frankenstein and The Last Man 170
- Further Thoughts on the Education of Daughters: Lodore as an Imagined Conversation with Mary Wollstonecraft 188
- Speaking the Unspeakable: Art Criticism as Life Writing in Mary Shelley’s Rambles in Germany and Italy 200
- Biographical Imaginings and Mary Shelley’s (Extant and Missing) Correspondence 228
- Reflections on Writing Mary Shelley’s Life 244
- Caves of Fancy 254
- Works Cited 306
- Contributors 324
- Index 328
- A 328
- B 328
- C 329
- D 330
- E 330
- F 331
- G 331
- H 332
- I 332
- J 333
- K 333
- L 333
- M 334
- N 335
- O 335
- P 335
- Q 336
- R 336
- S 337
- T 339
- U 339
- V 339
- W 340
- Y 341
- Z 341
