Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman

by William Godwin

"Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman" by William Godwin is a biography published in 1798. Written just months after his wife Mary Wollstonecraft's death, Godwin presents an unusually frank portrait of her life—including details eighteenth-century British society deemed scandalous. Inspired by Rousseau's "Confessions," he reveals her love affairs, illegitimate child, and suicide attempts. The memoir sparked immediate controversy, forcing revisions and damaging reputations, yet it remains an invaluable document of Wollstonecraft's extraordinary life and emerging biographical practices.