Monday, we’re talking about two feminist and literary giants who our guest says “broke almost every rule there was to break.” Mary Wollstonecraft was the pioneering 18th century author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in 1816 at the age of 19. They were also mother and daughter, though Wollstonecraft died less than two weeks after Shelley’s birth. Scholar Charlotte Gordon joins us to talk about their “outrageous” lives and their legacy for women today.
Charlotte Gordon is an Associate Professor of English at Endicott College in Massachusetts. She's the author of Mistress Bradstreet: The Untold Life of America’s First Poet [Indiebound|Amazon] and The Woman Who Named God: Abraham’s Dilemma and the Birth of Three Faiths [Indiebound|Amazon]. Her new book is called Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley. [Indiebound|Amazon]
- Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman [Indiebound|Amazon]
- Mary Shelley, Frankenstein [Indiebound|Amazon]