The Love Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft to Gilbert Imlay

In 1793, at the height of the French Revolution, Mary Wollstonecraft—the boldest voice for women's rights of her age—fell in love with Gilbert Imlay, an American adventurer. The letters she wrote him over the following three years trace an extraordinary arc: from the first glow of passion, through the birth of their daughter Fanny, into the slow heartbreak of his neglect and her struggle to hold onto reason and dignity as the relationship failed. Here is her private self, unguarded and eloquent: tender, furious, clear-eyed, and achingly human. This edition presents the COMPLETE, UNABRIDGED original text, faithfully reproduced, together with a new introduction situating the letters within Wollstonecraft's life and work, and reader's notes illuminating the people, places, and events behind them. A moving document of love and endurance from one of history's great thinkers. Part of The Founding Texts Library.