A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects
- London: J. Johnson, 1792
London: J. Johnson, 1792. First edition. Near Fine. Octavo (leaves 207 x 122mm), collating: xix, 452 pp. An excellent, Near Fine copy. Full contemporary polished calf. Expert leather repair to joints and edges. Small bookplate to upper pastedown (initials "DDa") and small contemporary woman's ink ownership signature ("Moira") to margin of p. 9. A bit of toning to endpapers and occasional light foxing. Overall, a very fresh and handsome copy of one of the most important founding documents of Western feminism: "A rational plea for a rational basis to the relation between the sexes" (Printing and the Mind of Man).
One of the founding documents of the women's equality movement, Vindication was radical in its rational and measured appeal to contemporary readers. Wollstonecraft used the structures of marriage and family to bolster her assertion that "if woman be not prepared by education to become the companion of man, she will stop the progress of knowledge, for truth must be common to all." By barring women from equally rigorous educations, society prevented women from rising to their full potential: as individuals as well as in their social roles, including those of of wife and mother. A signpost of Enlightenment thinking, Vindication applied wider political arguments to the existing systems of oppression operating between the sexes; in making marriage a microcosmic example of governmental tyranny, she uncovered its illogic and issued a call for the system's reconstruction within the rules of logic. "The divine right of husbands, like the divine right of kings, may, it is to be hoped, in this enlightened age, be contested without danger." And, indeed, she assures men that her intention is not to reverse the system by imposing a similar yolk upon them, but to bring equilibrium. "I do not wish women to have power over men, but over themselves." A text that is foundational to feminism as well as to humanist thinking.
PMM 242. Feminist Companion 1180. Near Fine.
One of the founding documents of the women's equality movement, Vindication was radical in its rational and measured appeal to contemporary readers. Wollstonecraft used the structures of marriage and family to bolster her assertion that "if woman be not prepared by education to become the companion of man, she will stop the progress of knowledge, for truth must be common to all." By barring women from equally rigorous educations, society prevented women from rising to their full potential: as individuals as well as in their social roles, including those of of wife and mother. A signpost of Enlightenment thinking, Vindication applied wider political arguments to the existing systems of oppression operating between the sexes; in making marriage a microcosmic example of governmental tyranny, she uncovered its illogic and issued a call for the system's reconstruction within the rules of logic. "The divine right of husbands, like the divine right of kings, may, it is to be hoped, in this enlightened age, be contested without danger." And, indeed, she assures men that her intention is not to reverse the system by imposing a similar yolk upon them, but to bring equilibrium. "I do not wish women to have power over men, but over themselves." A text that is foundational to feminism as well as to humanist thinking.
PMM 242. Feminist Companion 1180. Near Fine.
Details
Title
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects
Author
Wollstonecraft, Mary
Condition
Near Fine
Publisher
J. Johnson: London
Date
1792
Edition
First edition