Mary Wollstonecraft ( / ˈ w ʊ l s t ən . k r ɑː f t / ; 27 April 1759 – 10 September 1797) was an English writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights . During her brief career, she wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative , a history of the French Revolution , a conduct book , and a children's book. Wollstonecraft is best known for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), in which she argues that women are not naturally inferior to men, but appear to be only because they lack education. She suggests that both men and women should be treated as rational beings and imagines a social order founded on reason. Until the late 20th century, Wollstonecraft's life, which encompassed several unconventional personal relationships, received more attention than her writing. After two ill-fated affairs, with Henry Fuseli and Gilbert Imlay (by whom she had a daughter, Fanny Imlay ), Wollstonecraft married the philosopher William Godwin , one of the forefathers of the...
