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And now, in her thirtieth year, Mary Wollstonecraft had concluded her career as a governess, and was resolved henceforth to devote herself to literature. Her chances of success were slender indeed, for she had written nothing to encourage her for such a venture. It was her fortune, however, to make the acquaintance of Joseph Johnson, the humanitarian publisher and bookseller of St. Paul’s Churchyard, who issued the works of Priestley, Horne Tooke, Gilbert Wakefield, and other men of advanced thought, and she met at his table many of the authors for whom he published, and such eminent men of the day as William Blake, Fuseli, and Tom Paine. Mr. Johnson, who afterwards proved one of her best friends, encouraged her in her literary plans. He was the publisher of her “Thoughts on the Education of Daughters,” and had recognised in that little book so much promise, that when she sought his advice, he at once offered to assist her with employment.

Mary therefore settled at Michaelmas 1788 in a house in George Street, Blackfriars. She had brought to London the manuscript of her novel “Mary,” and she set to work on a book for children entitled “Original Stories from Real Life.” Both of these books appeared before the year was out, the latter with quaint plates by William Blake. Mary also occupied some of her time with translations from the French, German, and even Dutch, one of which was an abridged edition of Saltzmann’s “Elements of Morality,” for which Blake also supplied the illustrations. Besides this work, Johnson engaged Mary as his literary adviser or “reader,” and secured her services in connexion with The Analytical Review, a periodical that he had recently founded.

While she was at George Street she also wrote her “Vindication of the Rights of Man” in a letter to Edmund Burke. Her chief satisfaction in keeping up this house was to have a home where her brothers and sisters could always come when out of employment. She was never weary of assisting them either with money, or by exerting her influence to find them situations. One of her first acts when she settled in London was to send Everina Wollstonecraft to Paris to improve her French accent. Mr. Johnson, who wrote a short account of Mary’s life in London at this time, says she often spent her afternoons and evenings at his house, and used to seek his advice, or unburden her troubles to him. Among the many duties she imposed on herself was the charge of her father’s affairs, which must indeed have been a profitless undertaking.

The most important of Mary Wollstonecraft’s labours while she was living at Blackfriars was the writing of the book that is chiefly associated with her name, “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.” This volume—now much better known by its title than its contents—was dedicated to the astute M. Talleyrand de Périgord, late Bishop of Autun, apparently on account of his authorship of a pamphlet on National Education. It is unnecessary to attempt an analysis of this strikingly original but most unequal book—modern reprints of the work have appeared under the editorship both of Mrs. Fawcett and Mrs. Pennell. It is sufficient to say that it is really a plea for a more enlightened system of education, affecting not only her own sex, but also humanity in its widest sense. Many of her suggestions have long since been put to practical use, such as that of a system of free national education, with equal advantages for boys and girls. The book contains too much theory and is therefore to a great extent obsolete. Mary Wollstonecraft protests against the custom that recognises woman as the plaything of man; she pleads rather for a friendly footing of equality between the sexes, besides claiming a new order of things for women, in terms which are unusually frank. Such a book could not fail to create a sensation, and it speedily made her notorious, not only in this country, but on the Continent, where it was translated into French. It was of course the outcome of the French Revolution; the whole work is permeated with the ideas and ideals of that movement, but whereas the French patriots demanded rights for men, she made the same demands also for women.

It is evident that the great historical drama then being enacted in France had made a deep impression on Mary’s mind—its influence is stamped on every page of her book, and it was her desire to visit France with Mr. Johnson and Fuseli. Her friends were, however, unable to accompany her, so she went alone in the December of 1792, chiefly with the object of perfecting her French. Godwin states, though apparently in error, that Fuseli was the cause of her going to France, the acquaintance with the painter having grown into something warmer than mere friendship. Fuseli, however, had a wife and was happily married, so Mary “prudently resolved to retire into another country, far remote from the object who had unintentionally excited the tender passion in her breast.”

She certainly arrived in Paris at a dramatic moment; she wrote on December 24 to her sister Everina: “The day after to-morrow I expect to see the King at the bar, and the consequences that will follow I am almost afraid to anticipate.” On the day in question, the 26th, Louis XVI. appeared in the Hall of the Convention to plead his cause through his advocate, Desize, and on the same day she wrote that letter to Mr. Johnson which has so often been quoted: “About nine o’clock this morning,” she says, “the King passed by my window, moving silently along (excepting now and then a few strokes on the drum, which rendered the stillness more awful) through empty streets, surrounded by the national guards, who, clustering round the carriage, seemed to deserve their name. The inhabitants flocked to their windows, but the casements were all shut, not a voice was heard, nor did I see anything like an insulting gesture. For the first time since I entered France I bowed to the majesty of the people, and respected the propriety of behaviour so perfectly in unison with my own feelings. I can scarcely tell you why, but an association of ideas made the tears flow insensibly from my eyes, when I saw Louis sitting, with more dignity than I expected from his character, in a hackney coach, going to meet death, where so many of his race had triumphed. My fancy instantly brought Louis XIV. before me, entering the capital with all his pomp, after one of his victories so flattering to his pride, only to see the sunshine of prosperity overshadowed by the sublime gloom of misery....”

Mary first went to stay at the house of Madame Filiettaz, the daughter of Madame Bregantz, in whose school at Putney both Mrs. Bishop and Everina Wollstonecraft had been teachers. Mary was now something of a celebrity—“Authorship,” she writes, “is a heavy weight for female shoulders, especially in the sunshine of prosperity”—and she carried with her letters of introduction to several influential people in Paris. She renewed her acquaintance with Tom Paine, became intimate with Helen Maria Williams (who is said to have once lived with Imlay), and visited, among others, the house of Mr. Thomas Christie. It was her intention to go to Switzerland, but there was some trouble about her passport, so she settled at Neuilly, then a village three miles from Paris. “Her habitation here,” says Godwin, “was a solitary house in the midst of a garden, with no other habitant than herself and the gardener, an old man who performed for her many offices of a domestic, and would sometimes contend for the honour of making her bed. The gardener had a great veneration for his guest, and would set before her, when alone, some grapes of a particularly fine sort, which she could not without the greatest difficulty obtain of him when she had any person with her as a visitor. Here it was that she conceived, and for the most part executed, her historical and moral view of the French Revolution, into which she incorporated most of the observations she had collected for her letters, and which was written with more sobriety and cheerfulness than the tone in which they had been commenced. In the evening she was accustomed to refresh herself by a walk in a neighbouring wood, from which her host in vain endeavoured to dissuade her, by recounting divers horrible robberies and murders that had been committed there.”

From an engraving by Ridley, dated 1796, after a painting by John Opie, R.A.

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT.

This picture was purchased for the National Gallery at the sale of the late Mr. William Russell. The reason for supposing that it represents Mary Wollstonecraft rests solely on testimony of the engraving in the Monthly Mirror (published during her lifetime), from which this reproduction was made. Mrs. Merritt made an etching of the picture for Mr. Kegan Paul’s edition of the “Letters to Imlay.”

To face p. xvi

It is probable that in March 1793 Mary Wollstonecraft first saw Gilbert Imlay. The meeting occurred at Mr. Christie’s house, and her immediate impression was one of dislike, so that on subsequent occasions she avoided him. However, her regard for him rapidly changed into friendship, and later into love. Gilbert Imlay was born in New Jersey about 1755. He served as a captain in the American army during the Revolutionary war, and was the author of “A Topographical Description of the Western Territory of North America,” 1792, and a novel entitled “The Emigrants,” 1793. In the latter work, as an American, he proposes to “place a mirror to the view of Englishmen, that they may behold the decay of these features that were once so lovely,” and further “to prevent the sacrilege which the present practice of matrimonial engagements necessarily produce.” It is not known whether these views regarding marriage preceded, or were the result of, his connexion with Mary Wollstonecraft. In 1793 he was engaged in business, probably in the timber trade with Sweden and Norway.

In deciding to devote herself to Imlay, Mary sought no advice and took no one into her confidence. She was evidently deeply in love with him, and felt that their mutual confidence shared by no one else gave a sacredness to their union. Godwin, who is our chief authority on the Imlay episode, states that “the origin of the connexion was about the middle of April 1793, and it was carried on in a private manner for about three months.” Imlay had no property whatever, and Mary had objected to marry him, because she would not burden him with her own debts, or “involve him in certain family embarrassments,” for which she believed herself responsible. She looked upon her connexion with Imlay, however, “as of the most inviolable nature.” Then the French Government passed a decree that all British subjects resident in France should go to prison until a general declaration of peace. It therefore became expedient, not that a marriage should take place, for that would necessitate Mary declaring her nationality, but that she should take the name of Imlay, “which,” says Godwin, “from the nature of their connexion (formed on her part at least, with no capricious or fickle design), she conceived herself entitled to do, and obtain a certificate from the American Ambassador, as the wife of a native of that country. Their engagement being thus avowed, they thought proper to reside under the same roof, and for that purpose removed to Paris.”

In a letter from Mary Wollstonecraft to her sister Everina, dated from Havre, March 10, 1794, she describes the climate of France as “uncommonly fine,” and praises the common people for their manners; but she is also saddened by the scenes that she had witnessed and adds that “death and misery, in every shape of terror, haunt this devoted country.... If any of the many letters I have written have come to your hands or Eliza’s, you know that I am safe, through the protection of an American, a most worthy man who joins to uncommon tenderness of heart and quickness of feeling, a soundness of understanding, and reasonableness of temper rarely to be met with. Having been brought up in the interior parts of America, he is a most natural, unaffected creature.”

Mary has expressed in the “Rights of Woman” her ideal of the relations between man and wife; she now looked forward to such a life of domestic happiness as she had cherished for some time. She had known much unhappiness in the past. Godwin says: “She brought in the present instance, a wounded and sick heart, to take refuge in the attachment of a chosen friend. Let it not, however, be imagined, that she brought a heart, querulous, and ruined in its taste for pleasure. No; her whole character seemed to change with a change of fortune. Her sorrows, the depression of her spirits, were forgotten, and she assumed all the simplicity and the vivacity of a youthful mind. She was playful, full of confidence, kindness, and sympathy. Her eyes assumed new lustre, and her cheeks new colour and smoothness. Her voice became cheerful; her temper overflowing with universal kindness; and that smile of bewitching tenderness from day to day illuminated her countenance, which all who knew her will so well recollect, and which won, both heart and soul, the affections of almost every one that beheld it.” She had now met the man to whom she earnestly believed she could surrender herself with entire devotion. Naturally of an affectionate nature, for the first time in her life, with her impulsive Irish spirit, as Godwin says, “she gave way to all the sensibilities of her nature.”

The affair was nevertheless doomed to failure from the first. Mary had taken her step without much forethought. She attributed to Imlay “uncommon tenderness of heart,” but she did not detect his instability of character. He certainly fascinated her, as he fascinated other women, both before and after his attachment to Mary. He was not the man to be satisfied with one woman as his life-companion. A typical American, he was deeply immersed in business, but his affairs may not have claimed as much of his time as he represented. In the September after he set up house with Mary, that is in ’93, the year of the Terror, he left her in Paris while he went to Havre, formerly known as Havre de Grace, but then altered to Havre Marat. It is awful to think what must have been the life of this lonely stranger in Paris at such a time. Yet her letters to Imlay contain hardly a reference to the events of the Revolution.

Mary, tired of waiting for Imlay’s return to Paris, and sickened with the “growing cruelties of Robespierre,” joined him at Havre in January 1794, and on May 14 she gave birth to a girl, whom she named Frances in memory of Fanny Blood, the friend of her youth. There is every evidence throughout her letters to Imlay of how tenderly she loved the little one. In a letter to Everina, dated from Paris on September 20, she speaks thus of little Fanny:

“I want you to see my little girl, who is more like a boy. She is ready to fly away with spirits, and has eloquent health in her cheeks and eyes. She does not promise to be a beauty, but appears wonderfully intelligent, and though I am sure she has her father’s quick temper and feelings, her good humour runs away with all the credit of my good nursing.”

In September Imlay left Havre for London, and now that the Terror had subsided Mary returned to Paris. This separation really meant the end of their camaraderie. They were to meet again, but never on the old footing. The journey proved the most fatiguing that she ever made, the carriage in which she travelled breaking down four times between Havre and Paris. Imlay promised to come to Paris in the course of two months, and she expected him till the end of the year with cheerfulness. With the press of business and other distractions his feelings for her and the child had cooled, as the tone of his letters betrayed. For three months longer Imlay put her off with unsatisfactory explanations, but her suspense came to an end in April, when she went to London at his request. Her gravest forebodings proved too true. Imlay was already living with a young actress belonging to a company of strolling players; and it was evident, though at first he protested to the contrary, that Mary was only a second consideration in his life. He provided her, however, with a furnished house, and she did not at once abandon hope of a reconciliation: but when she realised that hope was useless, in her despair she resolved to take her life. Whether she actually attempted suicide, or whether Imlay learnt of her intention in time to prevent her, is not actually known. Imlay was at this time engaged in trade with Norway, and requiring a trustworthy representative to transact some confidential business, it was thought that the journey would restore Mary’s health and spirits. She therefore consented to take the voyage, and set out early in April 1795, with a document drawn up by Imlay appointing her as his representative, and describing her as “Mary Imlay, my best friend, and wife,” and concluding: “Thus, confiding in the talent, zeal, and earnestness of my dearly beloved friend and companion; I submit the management of these affairs entirely and implicitly to her discretion: Remaining most sincerely and affectionately hers truly, G. Imlay.”

The letters describing her travels, excluding any personal matters, were issued in 1796, as “Letters from Sweden and Norway,” one of her most readable books. The portions eliminated from these letters were printed by Godwin in his wife’s posthumous works, and are given in the present volume. She returned to England early in October with a heavy heart. Imlay had promised to meet her on the homeward journey, possibly at Hamburg, and to take her to Switzerland, but she hastened to London to find her suspicions confirmed. He provided her with a lodging, but entirely neglected her for some woman with whom he was living. On first making the discovery of his fresh intrigue, and in her agony of mind, she sought Imlay at the house he had furnished for his new companion. The conference resulted in her utter despair, and she decided to drown herself. She first went to Battersea Bridge, but found too many people there; and therefore walked on to Putney. It was night and raining when she arrived there, and after wandering up and down the bridge for half-an-hour until her clothing was thoroughly drenched she threw herself into the river. She was, however, rescued from the water and, although unconscious, her life was saved.

Mary met Imlay casually on two or three other occasions; probably her last sight of him was in the New Road (now Marylebone Road), when “he alighted from his horse, and walked with her some time; and the re-encounter passed,” she assured Godwin, “without producing in her any oppressive emotion.” Mary refused to accept any pecuniary assistance for herself from Imlay, but he gave a bond for a sum to be settled on her, the interest to be devoted to the maintenance of their child; neither principal nor interest, however, was ever paid. What ultimately became of Imlay is not known.

Mary at length resigned herself to the inevitable. Her old friend and publisher, Mr. Johnson, came to her aid, and she resolved to resume her literary work for the support of herself and her child. She was once more seen in literary society. Among the people whom she met at this time was William Godwin. Three years her senior, he was one of the most advanced republicans of the time, the author of “Political Justice” and the novel “Caleb Williams.” They had met before, for the first time in November 1791, but she displeased Godwin, because her vivacious gossip silenced the naturally quiet Thomas Paine, whom he was anxious to hear talk. Although they met occasionally afterwards, it was not until 1796 that they became friendly. There must have been something about Godwin that made him extremely attractive to his friends, for he numbered among them some of the most charming women of the day, and such men as Wordsworth, Lamb, Hazlitt, and Shelley were proud to be of his circle. To the members of his family he was of a kind, even affectionate, disposition. Unfortunately, he appears to the worst advantage—a kind of early Pecksniff—in his later correspondence and relations with Shelley, and it is by this correspondence at the present day that he is best known. The fine side-face portrait of Godwin by Northcote, in the National Portrait Gallery, preserves for us all the beauty of his intellectual brow and eyes. Another portrait of Godwin, full-face, with a long sad nose, by Pickersgill, once to be seen in the National Portrait Gallery, is not so pleasing. In a letter to Cottle, Southey gives an unflattering portrait of Godwin at the time of his marriage, which seems to suggest the full-face portrait of the philosopher—“he has large noble eyes, and a nose—oh, most abominable nose! Language is not vituperatious enough to describe the effect of its downward elongation.”

Godwin describes his courtship with Mary as “friendship melting into love.” They agreed to live together, but Godwin took rooms about twenty doors from their home in the Polygon, Somers Town, as it was one of his theories that living together under the same roof is destructive of family happiness. Godwin went to his rooms as soon as he rose in the morning, generally without taking breakfast with Mary, and he sometimes slept at his lodgings. They rarely met again until dinner-time, unless to take a walk together. During the day this extraordinary couple would communicate with each other by means of short letters or notes. Mr. Kegan Paul prints some of these; such as Godwin’s:

“I will have the honour to dine with you. You ask me whether I can get you four orders. I do not know, but I do not think the thing impossible. How do you do?”

And Mary’s: “Fanny is delighted with the thought of dining with you. But I wish you to eat your meat first, and let her come up with the pudding. I shall probably knock at your door on my way to Opie’s; but should I not find you, let me request you not to be too late this evening. Do not give Fanny butter with her pudding.” This note is dated April 20, 1797, and probably fixes the time when Mary was sitting for her portrait to Opie.

On the whole, Godwin and Mary lived happily together, with very occasional clouds, mainly due to her over-sensitive nature, and his confirmed bachelor habits.

Although both were opposed to matrimony on principle, they were married at Old St. Pancras Church on March 29, 1797, the clerk of the church being witness. Godwin does not mention the event in his carefully registered diary. The reason for the marriage was that Mary was about to become a mother, and it was for the sake of the child that they deemed it prudent to go through the ceremony. But it was not made public at once, chiefly for fear that Johnson should cease to help Mary. Mrs. Inchbald and Mrs. Reveley, two of Godwin’s admirers, were so upset at the announcement of his marriage that they shed tears.

An interesting description of Mary at this time is given in Southey’s letter to Cottle, quoted above, dated March 13, 1797. He says, “Of all the lions or literati I have seen here, Mary Imlay’s countenance is the best, infinitely the best: the only fault in it is an expression somewhat similar to what the prints of Horne Tooke display—an expression indicating superiority; not haughtiness, not sarcasm, in Mary Imlay, but still it is unpleasant. Her eyes are light brown, and although the lid of one of them is affected by a little paralysis, they are the most meaning I ever saw.”

Mary busied herself with literary work; otherwise her short married life was uneventful. Godwin made a journey with his friend Basil Montagu to Staffordshire from June 3 to 20, and the correspondence between husband and wife during this time, which Mr. Paul prints, is most delightful reading, and shows how entirely in sympathy they were.

From a photo by Emery, Walker after the picture by Opie

(probably painted in April, 1797) in the National Portrait Gallery.

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT.

This picture passed from Godwin’s hands on his death to his grandson, Sir Percy Florence Shelley. It was afterwards bequeathed to the nation by his widow, Lady Shelley. It was engraved by Heath (Jan. 1, 1798) for Godwin’s memoir of his wife. An engraving of it also appeared in the Lady’s Magazine, from which the frontispiece to this book was made, and a mezzotint by W. T. Annis was published in 1802. Mrs. Merritt also made an etching of the picture for Mr. Paul’s edition of the “Letters to Imlay.”

To face p. xxvi

On August 30, Mary’s child was born, not the William so much desired by them both but Mary, who afterwards became Mrs. Shelley. All seemed well with the mother until September 3, when alarming symptoms appeared. The best medical advice was obtained, but after a week’s illness, on Sunday morning, the 10th, at twenty minutes to eight, she sank and died. During her illness, when in great agony, an anodyne was administered, which gave Mary some relief, when she exclaimed, “Oh, Godwin, I am in heaven.” But, as Mr. Kegan Paul says, “even at that moment Godwin declined to be entrapped into the admission that heaven existed,” and his instant reply was: “You mean, my dear, that your physical sensations are somewhat easier.” Mary Godwin, however, did not share her husband’s religious doubts. Her sufferings had been great, but her death was a peaceful one.

Godwin’s grief was very deep, as the letters that he wrote immediately after her death, and his tribute to her memory in the “Memoirs” testify. Mary Godwin was buried in Old St. Pancras churchyard on September 15, in the presence of most of her friends. Godwin lived till 1836, when he was laid beside her. Many years afterwards, at the same graveside, Shelley is said to have plighted his troth to Mary Godwin’s daughter. In 1851, when the Metropolitan and Midland Railways were constructed at St. Pancras, the graveyard was destroyed, but the bodies of Mary and William Godwin were removed by their grandson, Sir Percy Shelley, to Bournemouth, where they now rest with his remains, and those of his mother, Mrs. Shelley.

In the year following Mary’s death (1798) Godwin edited his wife’s “Posthumous Works,” in four volumes, in which appeared the letters to Imlay, and her incomplete novel “The Wrongs of Woman.” His tribute to Mary Godwin’s memory was also published in 1798, under the title of “Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.” Godwin’s novel, “St. Leon” came out in 1799; his tragedy “Antonio” was produced only to fail, in 1800, and in 1801, he was wooed and won by Mrs. Clairmont, a widow. The Godwin household was a somewhat mixed one, consisting, as it did, of Fanny Imlay, Mary Godwin, Mrs. Godwin’s two children, Charles and Claire Clairmont, and also of William, the only child born of her marriage with Godwin. In 1812 Shelley began a correspondence with Godwin, which ultimately led to Mary Godwin’s elopement with the poet. Poor Fanny Imlay, or Godwin, as she was called after her mother’s death, died at the age of nineteen by her own hand, in October 1816. Her life had been far from happy in this strange household. She had grown to love Shelley, but his choice had fallen on her half-sister, so she bravely kept her secret to herself. One day she suddenly left home and travelled to Swansea, where she was found lying dead the morning after her arrival, in the inn where she had taken a room, “her long brown hair about her face; a bottle of laudanum upon the table, and a note which ran thus: ‘I have long determined that the best thing I could do was to put an end to the existence of a being whose birth was unfortunate, and whose life has only been a series of pain to those persons who have hurt their health in endeavouring to promote her welfare.’ She had with her the little Genevan watch, a gift of travel from Mary and Shelley: and in her purse were a few shillings.”[1]

Shelley, afterwards recalling his last interview with Fanny in London, wrote this stanza:

“Her voice did quiver as we parted;

Yet knew I not that heart was broken

From whence it came, and I departed

Heeding not the words then spoken.

Misery—O Misery,

This world is all too wide for thee!”