Books like The life and death of Mary Wollstonecraft by Claire Tomalin

Contains primary source material.

Lyndall Gordon defends Mary Wollstonecraft, 1759‑1797, founder of modern feminism, by painting her vibrant portrait and correcting her historical reputation.

Linda Lear’s biography reveals the extraordinary life of Beatrix Potter, celebrated artist, illustrator, author, businesswoman, scientist, and Lakeland landowner.

Isobel Grundy is the first to examine in detail Lady Mary's family situation and social relationships, or to situate Montagu's writing life in relation to both tradition and innovation, to enlightenment circles and political agendas, and to the emerging tradition of women's writing, in which she herself was a key figure. Grundy highlights Lady Mary's adolescent longing for literary fame, her growing understanding of the pressures of class and gender imperatives on such upstart desires, her conflicted negotiations with manuscript culture and the new world of print, the punitive responses of society, the deep dissonance at every stage of her life between her actual circumstances and the constructed self of her letters and other writings. She also situates Montagu's work in the context of her exceptionally wide reading in both men's and women's texts, and her own theorizing of her social world.