First published in 1792, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman was an
instant success, turning its thirty-three-year-old author into a minor
celebrity. A pioneering work of early feminism that extends to women the
Enlightenment principle of "the rights of man," its argument remains as
relevant today as it was for Woll-stonecraft's contemporaries. "Mary
Wollstonecraft was not the first writer to call for women to receive a
real, challenging education," writes Katha Pollitt in the new
Introduction. "But she was the first to connect the education of women
to the transformation of women's social position, of relations between
the sexes, and even of society itself. She was the first to argue that
women's intellectual equality would and should have actual consequences.
The winds of change sweep through her pages."
This classic work of early feminism remains as relevant and passionate
today as it was for Wollstonecraft's contemporaries. This edition
includes new explanatory notes.