Book description
The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft is the acclaimed
bestselling biography by Claire Tomalin
Winner of the Whitbread First Book Prize
Witty, courageous and unconventional, Mary Wollstonecraft was one of
the most controversial figures of her day. She published A Vindication
of the Rights of Women; travelled to revolutionary France and lived
through the Terror and the destruction of the incipient French
feminist movement; produced an illegitimate daughter; and married
William Godwin before dying in childbed at the age of thirty-eight.
Often embattled and bitterly disappointed, she never gave up her
radical ideas or her belief that courage and honesty would triumph
over convention.
'Tomalin is a most intelligent and sympathetic biographer, aware of
her impetuous subject's many failings, yet with the perception to
present her greatness fairly. She writes well and wittily' Daily Telegraph
'A vivid evocation not only of what Mary went through but also of
how women lived in the second part of the eighteenth century. Most of
all, however, Tomalin makes Mary Wollstonecraft unforgettable'
Evening Standard
From the acclaimed author of Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self,
Charles Dickens: A Life and The Invisible Woman, this
celebrated biography is the definitive account of Mary
Wollstonecraft's life.
Claire Tomalin is the award-winning author of eight highly acclaimed
biographies, including: The Life and Death of Mary
Wollstonecraft; Shelley and His World; Katherine
Mansfield: A Secret Life; The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly
Ternan and Charles Dickens; Mrs Jordan's Profession; Jane Austen: A
Life; Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self; Thomas Hardy: The Time-Torn
Man and, most recently, Charles Dickens: A Life. A former
literary editor of the New Statesman and the Sunday
Times, she is married to the playwright and novelist Michael Frayn.
Claire Tomalin was born in London in 1933. She has worked in
publishing and journalism all her life, becoming literary editor first
of the
New Statesman
and then of the
Sunday Times
, which she left in 1986. She is the author of, among other books:
The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft
;
Shelley and His World
Katherine Mansfield: A Secret Life
;
The Invisible Woman
and the extraordinarily successful biography of Samuel Pepys. Other
books written for Penguin are:
Jane Austen: A Life
and a collection of memoirs entitled
Several Strangers
.
