Foreword
Mary Wollstonecraft was born on the 27th of April 1759 in Spitalfields, England. Her father’s name was Edward John, and the name of her mother Elizabeth, of the family of Dixons of Ballyshannon in the kingdom of Ireland. Her paternal grandfather was a respectable manufacturer in Spitalfields, and is supposed to have left to his son a property of 10,000. She had three brothers and two sisters: Edward, James, Charles, Eliza, and Everina. Of these, Edward only was older than herself.
She was not the favourite either of her father or mother. Her father was a man of quick, impetuous disposition, subject to alternate fits of kindness and cruelty. In his family he was a despot, and his wife appears to have been the first, and most submissive of his subjects.
The unkindness or indifference from her father and family seemed to counteract the superiority of Mary’s mind. From a person little considered in the family, she would eventually become its sort of director or umpire. For some reason or another, destiny did not intend for her to be a contented and unresisting subject of a despot.
The blows of her father, instead of humbling her, roused her indignation. Upon such occasions she felt her superiority and was apt to betray marks of contempt. The quickness of her father’s temper led him sometimes to threaten similar violence towards his wife. In such situations, Mary would often position herself between her father and his wife, purposefully absorbing the blows that might be aimed at her mother. She laid whole nights upon the landing-place near their chamber-door, when, with reason or not, she apprehended her father might break out into paroxysms of violence. The conduct he held towards the members of his family, was of the same kind as that he observed towards animals. He was mostly extravagantly fond of them; but, when he was displeased, and this frequently happened, and for very trivial reasons, his anger was alarming.
The rustic situation in which Mary had spent her infancy, no doubt contributed to confirm the stamina of her constitution. She sported in the open air, and amidst the picturesque and refreshing scenes of nature, for which she always kept the most exquisite relish. Dolls and the other amusements usually appropriated to female children, she held in contempt; and felt a much greater propensity to join in the active and hardy sports of her brothers, than to confine herself to those of her own sex.
In 1765, he once more changed his residence, and occupied a convenient house behind the town of Barking in Essex, eight miles from London. In 1768, Mr. Wollstonecraft again removed the family to a farm near Beverly in Yorkshire. Here the family remained for six years. Mr. Wollstonecraft worked as a farmer, but the restlessness of his disposition would not suffer him to content himself with the occupation in which for some years he had been engaged, and the temptation of a commercial speculation of some sort being held out to him, he removed the family to a house in Queen’s-Row, in Hoxton near London.
One of the acquaintances Mary formed at this time was a Mr. Clare, who inhabited the next house to that which was tenanted by her father, and to whom she was probably in some degree indebted for the early cultivation of her mind. But a connection more memorable originated about this time, between Mary and a person of her own sex, for whom she contracted a friendship so fervent, as for years to have constituted the ruling passion of her mind.
She was two years older than Mary. Her residence was at that time at Newington Butts, a village near the southern extremity of the metropolis; and the original instrument for bringing these two friends acquainted, was Mrs. Clare, wife of the gentleman already mentioned, who was on a footing of considerable intimacy with both parties. The acquaintance of Fanny, like that of Mr. Clare, contributed to ripen the immature talents of Mary. The name of this person was Frances Blood.
