Folio Archives 211: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft. 2008

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Folio Archives 211: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft. 2008

1wcarter
Modificato: Mar 26, 2021, 6:34 am

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects by Mary Wollstonecraft 2008

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759 to 1797) was an English writer and women’s rights advocate. She is regarded as one of the founding feminists. She wrote novels, travel narratives, histories, children’s books and this book – her most famous work. She died 11 days after giving birth to her second daughter, Mary Shelley, who was the author of Frankenstein.

In this book, Wollstonecraft uses various arguments in an attempt to persuade the reader that women are not naturally inferior to men but appear to be so only because they lack education. She actively promotes equality of education and a rationalisation of societies manners, and suggests that both men and women should be treated as rational beings. She imagines a social order founded on reason. The book is written in the typical style of the late 18th. century, and in places may be rather turgid and repetitive, but her ideas are quite revolutionary for the era.
This Folio Society edition has 298 pages and is introduced by Claire Tomalin. The seven illustrations are mainly exercises in calligraphy, being phrases extracted from the text that appeal to the artist, Stephen Raw.

The book is bound in bright white cloth which stands out on the shelf as being by far the whitest of my 800+ Folio Society books. The cover is blocked in black with the title in a calligraphic style the same as the illustrations, and there are two small red blocked images of an 18th. and 21st. century woman. The end papers are a contrasting jet black to the white binding. The slipcase is a brilliant red and 23.9x17.1cm.

























































An index of the other illustrated reviews in the "Folio Archives" series can be viewed here.

2adriano77
Modificato: Mar 26, 2021, 12:31 am

Thanks for the review. I've meant to pick this up but other things always end up coming ahead of it. Didn't realize it was illustrated at all.

-edit. Anyone that's read it care to share an opinion?

3ubiquitousuk
Modificato: Mar 26, 2021, 4:51 am

Thanks for another nice post >1 wcarter:. I like the typographical illustrations.

I think there's a typo in the post title: shouldn't it be Woman instead of Women?

4RRCBS
Mar 26, 2021, 5:30 am

Bah, I didn’t know there was a FS edition of this book and now I really want it! I have the Everyman’s Library edition though so will have to think... as always, thanks for the post!

5cronshaw
Mar 26, 2021, 5:52 am

Thanks again, Warwick. Given the subject and author, I think it's a shame Folio didn't choose a female illustrator for this title.

6wcarter
Mar 26, 2021, 6:34 am

>3 ubiquitousuk:
You are (of course) correct. Title amended.

7Bob_Reader
Apr 7, 2021, 12:35 am

Questo utente è stato eliminato perché considerato spam.

8jveezer
Apr 7, 2021, 12:01 pm

>2 adriano77: Alas I read this before I started taking notes on books I read but to answer your question generally I'd say it is canonical in a way that most books in the "canon" are not. In that it is one of the founding texts on feminism by a woman basically expressing the simplest definition of feminism: that women should have the same rights as men. Shocking that the fight goes on, and goes backwards in some backwards countries like my own, the U.S.A. Definitely worth a read and definitely worth having on your shelf.

I have the Easton Press edition, I believe from the "100 Books that Changed the World" series, which can probably be picked up extremely cheap. But it doesn't compare to this beautiful edition.

9LolaWalser
Apr 7, 2021, 12:39 pm

>5 cronshaw:

The worst is that they chose someone who thought it was OK to deride women, and that they frivolously allowed it. "I want them not to have power over men but over themselves"--and the illustration shows a modern-day "shopaholic". Way to undermine a text about humankind's most general injustice...

10cronshaw
Apr 7, 2021, 1:02 pm

>9 LolaWalser: Yes, I saw that particular image and was struck by how crassly inappropriate it is.

11agitationalporcelain
Apr 7, 2021, 1:16 pm

>5 cronshaw:

I may have the wrong end of the stick, but aren't the illustrations of figures by Sheri Gee? That's my reading of the colophon page anyway - and that Stephen Raw did the lettering only?

>9 LolaWalser:
>10 cronshaw:
Do agree with this though - it's quite jarring. That aside, I think the rest of the book and the other illustrations look very nice, but in a way that makes it even more of a shame to have the shopping bags featured on the frontispiece like that.

12cronshaw
Apr 7, 2021, 5:14 pm

>11 agitationalporcelain: I believe you're right, my mistake! Thank you for correcting me. I'm pleased FS chose a female illustrator after all. I do find it all the more strange though that she should think that a shopaholic is a fitting symbol for an emancipated woman.

13LolaWalser
Apr 7, 2021, 8:21 pm

>11 agitationalporcelain:, >12 cronshaw:

Sadly, women can't be automatically assumed to be feminist. I'm not even sure the illustrator here had read the book... But I think the ultimate responsibility always lies with the editors/the publishers, since presumably they are the ones greenlighting the concept. Someone not only thought that was acceptable, but chose it for the frontispiece, giving tone to the whole presentation of the book (and therefore the theme).

Setting aside whatever one thinks about feminism, this should rankle anyone because it is a gross professional failure--the spirit of the book has been flatly betrayed. A cardinal sin in the art of illustration. Wollstonecraft was writing at a time when women were still a kind of property handed from one sort of guardian to another, so her plea for women to have "power over themselves" is a heart-rending cry for basic dignity, something essential for a human being.

And yet here we have that ridiculed by invoking (oh-so-originally)... the ladies' supposed madness for shopping, actually expressing the stereotype of the woman as a stupid ditz in thrall to her whims and fashion, incapable of "power over herself".

I don't mean to go on, this has been talked about already, but it's truly one for the annals of "Bizarre choices in bookmaking" or some such.