One of the most controversial figures of her day, Mary Wollstonecraft published "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman", travelled to revolutionary France and lived through the terror and destruction of the incipient French feminist movement, produced an illegitimate daughter and married William Godwin before dying in childbirth at the age of 38. First published in 1974, this biography has been reissued to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the publication of "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman".

About the Author

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.