Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) was a moral and political theorist who challenged women's conditions in eighteenth century England. She not only made a powerful case for liberating and educating women, she also lived out her theories and refused to cave to patriarchal pressure; passionate and forthright, her A Vindication of the Rights of Women was a great feminist treatise that paved the way for social reform in the nineteenth century. Wollstonecraft married William Godwin, a fellow radical, after becoming pregnant with his child. She died just ten days after giving birth to their daughter, who would grow up to be Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein.
