Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman — Edition Insights

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Authors: Godwin, William, 1756-1836 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2005 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Wollstonecraft, Mary, 1759-1797; Authors, English -- 18th century -- Biography; Feminists -- Great Britain -- Biography Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

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Words 28,019

Reading time 122 min

Text sections 3

This digital edition of Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman — Edition Insights is described by source-level measurements including 28,019 words, 2 hr 2 min estimated reading time, and 3 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 22.9 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Wollstonecraft, Mary, 1759-1797,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #16199

William Godwin's 1798 memoir of Mary Wollstonecraft, drawing on her own recollections and his interviews, reveals her intense sensibility through his distinctive prose—comparing her to Werther, describing her as a 'serpent upon a rock,' and tracing her emotional dependence on Gilbert Imlay.

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Mary was distinguished in early youth, by some portion of that exquisite sensibility, soundness of understanding, and decision of character, which were the leading features of her mind through the whole course of her life. She experienced in the first period of her existence, but few of those indulgences and marks of affection, which are principally calculated to sooth the subjection and sorrows of our early years. She was not the favourite either of her father or mother. Her father was a man of a 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 mother's partiality was fixed upon the eldest son, and her system of government relative to Mary, was characterized by considerable rigour. She, at length, became convinced of her mistake, and adopted a different plan with her younger daughters. When, in the Wrongs of Woman, Mary speaks of "the petty cares which obscured the morning of her heroine's life; continual restraint in the most trivial matters; unconditional submission to orders, which, as a mere child, she soon discovered to be unreasonable, because inconsistent and contradictory; and the being often obliged to sit, in the presence of her parents, for three or four hours together, without daring to utter a word;" she is, I believe, to be considered as copying the outline of the first period of her own existence.

But it was in vain, that the blighting winds of unkindness or indifference, seemed destined to counteract the superiority of Mary's mind. It surmounted every obstacle; and, by degrees, from a person little considered in the family, she became in some sort its director and umpire. The despotism of her education cost her many a heart-ache. She was not formed to be the contented and unresisting subject of a despot; but I have heard her remark more than once, that, when she felt she had done wrong, the reproof or chastisement of her mother, instead of being a terror to her, she found to be the only thing capable of reconciling her to herself. The blows of her father on the contrary, which were the mere ebullitions of a passionate temper, 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. When that was the case, Mary would often throw herself between the despot and his victim, with the purpose to receive upon her own person the blows that might be directed against her mother. She has even laid whole nights upon the landing-place near their chamber-door, when, mistakenly, or with reason, she apprehended that 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 for the most part extravagantly fond of them; but, when he was displeased, and this frequently happened, and for very trivial reasons, his anger was alarming. Mary was what Dr. Johnson would have called, "a very good hater." In some instance of passion exercised by her father to one of his dogs, she was accustomed to speak of her emotions of abhorrence, as having risen to agony. In a word, her conduct during her girlish years, was such, as to extort some portion of affection from her mother, and to hold her father in considerable awe.

In one respect, the system of education of the mother appears to have had merit. All her children were vigorous and healthy. This seems very much to depend upon the management of our infant years. It is affirmed by some persons of the present day, most profoundly skilled in the sciences of health and disease, that there is no period of human life so little subject to mortality, as the period of infancy. Yet, from the mismanagement to which children are exposed, many of the diseases of childhood are rendered fatal, and more persons die in that, than in any other period of human life. Mary had projected a work upon this subject, which she had carefully considered, and well understood. She has indeed left a specimen of her skill in this respect in her eldest daughter, three years and a half old, who is a singular example of vigorous constitution and florid health. Mr. Anthony Carlisle, surgeon, of Soho-square, whom to name is sufficiently to honour, had promised to revise her production. This is but one out of numerous projects of activity and usefulness, which her untimely death has fatally terminated.

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William Godwin opens his memoir of Mary Wollstonecraft by asserting a survivor's duty to defend the reputation of the eminent dead. He writes that he gathered facts 'principally from the mouth of the person to whom they relate,' noting that he 'repeatedly led the conversation of Mary to topics of this sort' and made notes in her presence. This method yields a portrait shaped by Godwin's own philosophical convictions and his intimate access to Wollstonecraft's memories.

The narrative voice is unmistakably Godwin's: measured, analytical, yet capable of sudden emotional intensity. He does not simply recount events but interprets them through a lens of sensibility, comparing Wollstonecraft to 'a female Werter' and describing her mind as 'almost of too fine a texture to encounter the vicissitudes of human affairs.' These authorial choices—the invocation of Goethe, the metaphor of the serpent casting its slough—reveal how Godwin frames Wollstonecraft's life as a study in exquisite suffering and resilience.

Godwin's Method: Conversation and Reconstruction

Godwin explains that his account rests on two sources: Wollstonecraft's own recollections, shared in conversation, and 'an industrious enquiry among the persons most intimately acquainted with her at the different periods of her life.' He admits to having made notes of dates 'once or twice' in her presence, suggesting a deliberate but informal process. The resulting narrative is neither a diary nor a formal biography but a reconstruction filtered through Godwin's memory and his philosophical interest in character formation.

This method has consequences for the reader. Godwin's voice dominates; he frequently steps back to comment on human nature, as when he observes that 'evils take their rank, more from the temper of the mind that suffers them, than from their abstract nature.' Such passages reveal Godwin's own preoccupations as much as Wollstonecraft's experiences. The memoir thus becomes a double portrait: of its subject and of its author's way of seeing.

The Language of Sensibility: Werther and the Serpent

Godwin repeatedly turns to literary and natural imagery to convey Wollstonecraft's emotional state. He calls her 'a female Werter,' invoking Goethe's novel of suicidal passion, and describes her sensibility as 'exquisite and delicious' yet so fine that 'disappointment is agony indescribable.' These are not neutral observations; they are deliberate comparisons that align Wollstonecraft with a Romantic archetype of the suffering genius.

Even more striking is the serpent simile: 'She was like a serpent upon a rock, that casts its slough, and appears again with the brilliancy, the sleekness, and the elastic activity of its happiest age.' The image is vivid and unexpected, suggesting renewal after hardship. Godwin extends it by noting that her 'eyes assumed new lustre, and her cheeks new colour and smoothness.' Such figurative language is rare in biographical writing of the period and marks Godwin's effort to capture Wollstonecraft's volatile temperament.

Domestic Affection and the Language of Attachment

When describing Wollstonecraft's relationship with Gilbert Imlay, Godwin adopts a vocabulary of botanical and emotional entanglement. He quotes Wollstonecraft's own words—'she had thrown out some tendrils, to cling to the elm by which she wished to be supported'—and adds that she was 'conscious that she was not a parasite-plant.' This metaphor of clinging and independence recurs throughout the narrative, reflecting the tension between Wollstonecraft's desire for affection and her fear of dependence.

Godwin also notes her grief that Imlay 'did not attach those tender emotions round the idea of home.' The phrase 'tender emotions' and the spatial metaphor of 'round the idea of home' reveal how Godwin reads Wollstonecraft's emotional life through domestic imagery. He presents her love as 'unbounded' and her confidence as 'entire,' but the narrative hints at the imbalance that will lead to her despair. The language of attachment here is both tender and foreboding.

Solitude and the Unforeseen Trial

After Imlay leaves for Le Havre, Godwin writes that 'the solitude in which she was now left, proved an unexpected trial.' He does not sensationalize her suffering but instead presents it as a consequence of her character: 'Domestic affections constituted the object upon which her heart was fixed.' The word 'fixed' suggests a rigidity that makes separation unbearable. Godwin's choice to call the solitude 'unexpected' implies that Wollstonecraft herself did not anticipate how deeply she would be affected.

Throughout this section, Godwin maintains a tone of sympathetic observation. He records that she 'early felt, with an inward grief' Imlay's emotional absence, but he refrains from moral judgment. Instead, he lets the details—the 'inward grief,' the 'eyes dimmed with moisture'—convey the pain. This restraint is characteristic of Godwin's approach: he presents evidence of suffering without melodrama, trusting the reader to feel the weight of Wollstonecraft's disappointment.

Godwin's memoir is best read as a carefully constructed argument about the nature of genius and suffering. He does not pretend to offer a complete record; instead, he selects episodes and images that illustrate Wollstonecraft's 'exquisite sensibility.' Readers should attend to the tension between Godwin's philosophical detachment and his evident admiration for his subject. The result is a work that reveals as much about the biographer's own values as about the life it purports to document.

Reading Godwin’s portrait of Wollstonecraft—that raw, almost reckless sensibility—I kept thinking of another solitary soul: the trapper in Five Years in the Alleghanies — Text and Context. Different worlds, yet both books rest on a similar ache. One heart laid bare against society’s edges; the other, a quiet man against the mountain. Strange, how a memoir can feel so near to a wilderness journal, each a footprint of someone waiting, briefly, to be understood.