Brekke Tone - Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark

OXFORD WORLDS CLASSICS

LETTERS WRITTEN IN
SWEDEN, NORWAY, AND DENMARK

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT was born in 1759, the granddaughter of a wealthy Irish manufacturer. Her father spent the fortune he inherited and took to drink, so in 1783 Mary left to keep a school in Newington Green with her sister Eliza. She subsequently became governess to Lord Kingsboroughs children, during which time she wrote Mary: A Fiction (1788). Her best-known works are Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790) and Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). She left for France in 1792 to witness the progress of the Revolution at first hand. In France she met and lived with an American, Gilbert Imlay, by whom she had a daughter, Fanny. His infidelity drove her to return to England and to an attempted suicide. Soon afterwards she left for Scandinavia on business for Imlay, the journey that produced Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. On her return she found him living with an actress and again attempted suicide. She married William Godwin in 1797, and died a few months later at the birth of her daughter Mary (later to become Shelleys second wife). The Wrongs of Woman, a largely autobiographical novel in which she explores the parallels between domestic and political life, private and public morality, was published in 1798.

TONE BREKKE is Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Gender Research at the University of Oslo.

JON MEE is Professor of Romanticism Studies at the University of Warwick.

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OXFORD WORLDS CLASSICS

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT

Edited with an Introduction and Notes by

TONE BREKKE and JON MEE

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP

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Editorial material Tone Brekke and Jon Mee 2009

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First published as an Oxford Worlds Classics paperback 2009

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Data available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wollstonecraft, Mary, 1759-1797.
Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark /
Mary Wollstonecraft ; edited with an introduction and notes by Tone Brekke and Jon Mee.
p. cm. (Oxford worlds classics)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 9780199230631
1. Wollstonecraft, Mary, 17591797TravelScandinavia. 2. Wollstonecraft, Mary,
17591797Correspondence. 3. Imlay, Gilbert, 1754?1828?Correspondence.
4. ScandinaviaDescription and travelEarly works to 1800.
5. Authors, English18th centuryCorrespondence.
6. FeministsGreat BritainCorrespondence. I. Brekke, Tone. II. Mee, Jon. III. Title.
PR5841.W8Z48 2009
828.609dc22
[B]
2008046065

Typeset by Cepha Imaging Private Ltd., Bangalore, India
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ISBN 9780199230631

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THE editors are extremely grateful to the Bodleian Library and the Danish State Archives for permission to reproduce the materials in .

The introduction and notes have benefited greatly from the advice of Lyndall Gordon and Gunnar Molden, who very generously gave their time and knowledge at short notice to help the editors. Astrid Wind and Luisa Cal also gave valuable help. David Fallon worked tirelessly checking the manuscript and hunting down facts. His enthusiasm, knowledge, and good spirits have been greatly appreciated. Any errors that remain are, of course, the responsibility of the editors.

Jon Mee is grateful for the support of a Philip J. Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship provided by the Leverhulme Trust. Tone Brekke would like to thank the Centre for Gender Research at the University of Oslo for providing a nurturing research environment.

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BY the time she went to Scandinavia in June 1795, the pioneering feminist Mary Wollstonecraft was an established professional writer, but getting there had been a hard journey, and her ability to survive, never mind her reputation, as a professional writer was far from guaranteed. Although she is still better known for her enthusiastic defence of the French Revolution in Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790) and even more famous for the groundbreaking feminism of Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark (1796) was the book best received by her contemporaries and can still claim to be among her greatest achievements. Her future husband William Godwin responded to it with immense eagerness and warmth: If ever there was a book calculated to make a man in love with its author, this appears to me to be the book.she finds in Norway, but recognizing that the sociable self needs a more developed cultural life, such as she had enjoyed in London and, especially, republican Paris. More generally,