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Mary; Maria; Matilda
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Mary; Maria; Matilda Paperback - 1993

by Mary Wollstonecraft; Mary Shelley; Janet Todd (Editor)


Summary

This book brings together three extraordinary novels by an extraordinary pair, Mary Wollstonecraft, radical feminist and author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, and Mary Shelley, her daughter, author of Frankenstein.

In Mary (1788), Mary Wollstonecraft explores the position of an alienated intellectual woman and, in portraying her struggle against the constraints of a claustrophobic feminine world, began a line that would include the more substantial heroines of Jane Eyre and Villette. In the posthumously published Maria (1798) she continues in fiction the arguments of the Vindication. Mary Shelley wrote Matilda in 1819, while in mourning for her first son. William Godwin, Mary's father, found its subject of father-daughter incest so 'disgusting and detestable' that he refused to publish it and the work remained suppressed for over a century.

In her illuminating introduction to this edition Janet Todd explores how these novels are linked, not only through the mother-daughter relationship of their authors, but in their perceptions of feminism and female sexuality and in their autobiographical richness.

From the publisher

These three works of fiction - two by Mary Wollstonecraft, the radical author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, and one by her daughter Mary Shelley, creator of Frankenstein - are powerfully emotive stories that combine passion with forceful feminist argument. In Mary Wollstonecraft's Mary, the heroine flees her young husband in order to nurse her dearest friend, Ann, and finds genuine love, while Maria tells of a desperate young woman who seeks consolation in the arms of another man after the loss of her child. And Mary Shelley's Matilda - suppressed for over a century - tells the story of a woman alienated from society by the incestuous passion of her father. Humane, compassionate and highly controversial, these stories demonstrate the strongly original genius of their authors. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

First line

Mary, the heroine of this fiction, was the daughter of Edward, who married Eliza, a gentle, fashionable girl, with a kind of indolence in her temper, which might be termed negative good-nature: her virtues, indeed were all of that stamp.

Details

  • Title Mary; Maria; Matilda
  • Author Mary Wollstonecraft; Mary Shelley; Janet Todd (Editor)
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition Reprint
  • Pages 256
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Penguin Group, E Rutherford, New Jersey, U.S.A.
  • Date May 4, 1993
  • ISBN 9780140433715 / 0140433716
  • Weight 0.41 lbs (0.19 kg)
  • Dimensions 7.77 x 5.06 x 0.62 in (19.74 x 12.85 x 1.57 cm)
  • Ages 18 to UP years
  • Grade levels 13 - UP
  • Library of Congress subjects Women, English fiction - Women authors
  • Dewey Decimal Code 823.608

About the author

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-97) was an educational, political and feminist writer who early in her life worked as a companion, teacher and governess. In 1788 she settled in London as a translator and reader for the publisher Joseph Johnson, becoming part of the radical set that included Paine, Blake, Godwin and the painter Fuseli. Her great work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, was published in 1792. She lived in Paris during the French Revolution and had a child by the American Gilbert Imlay, who deserted her. She returned to London in 1795 and, following her attempted suicide, became involved with Godwin, whom she married in 1797, shortly before the birth (which proved fatal) of her daughter, the future Mary Shelley. She left several unfinished works, including Maria.

Janet Todd is Francis Hutcheson Professor of English Literature at the University of Glasgow and an honorary fellow of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge.


Janet Todd is Francis Hutcheson Professor of English Literature at the University of Glasgow and an honorary fellow of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge.

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Mary and Maria, Matilda (Penguin Classics)

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