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Title: Maria or the Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Anne K. Mellor ISBN: 0-393-31169-4 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: August, 1994 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3 (1 review)
Rating: 3
Summary: Maria - The Female Caleb Williams
Comment: "Maria" is an unfinished novel which Wollstonecraft intended to display the cruelty, injustice, and utter lack of personal freedom of women in the late 18th century. Drawing on sources from Rousseau, to her husband William Godwin's "Political Justice" and "Caleb Williams," to her own "Vindication of the Rights of Woman," Wollstonecraft sets up a scenario in which a woman falls prey to the maddening strictures of law. Although it may not initially appear so, "Maria" is very much in the strain of gothic literature. Wollstonecraft takes pains to illustrate that the gothic need not be enacted in castles or by demons, but can be just as horrifying, if not more so, when 'normal' society proves to be an intractable villain itself.
The novel reads like a philosophical treatise, the main action being life stories told by the primary characters, Maria, her mad-house warden Jemima, and her unlikely lover, Henry Darnford, including their digressive running commentaries. As the novel begins, Maria is in the mad-house, deprived of her infant daughter by her greedy husband, George Venables, whom she despises.
As in Godwin's "Caleb Williams," Wollstonecraft does not scruple to pile severe mental anguish upon clear injustices to drive home her points regarding society's treatment of women. Her most vicious attacks are reserved for the law and surprisingly, for women. The law preserves a basis for treating women as perpetual minors, and unfortunately, women, realizing their powerlessness, too often resign themselves to their lot.
Though fragmentary and incomplete, "Maria" has the same kind of power as "Caleb Williams," and the two should be read together for maximum effect. The force of Wollstonecraft's writing comes from the fact that her observations were just, and that she dared to voice them on behalf of all women.
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Title: The Female Quixote or the Adventures of Arabella (Oxford World's Classics) by Charlotte Lennox, Margaret Dalziel ISBN: 0192835726 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: September, 1998 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: A Simple Story (Oxford World's Classics) by Elizabeth Inchbald, J.M.S. Tompkins ISBN: 019283598X Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: November, 1998 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: Pamela: Or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson, Thomas Keymer, Alice Wakely ISBN: 0192829602 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: June, 2001 List Price(USD): $7.95 |
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Title: Caleb Williams by William Godwin, Maurice Hindle ISBN: 0140432566 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: August, 1988 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft ISBN: 0486290360 Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 03 July, 1996 List Price(USD): $3.00 |
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