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Mary Wollstonecraft, often described as the first major feminist, is remembered principally as the author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), and there has been a tendency to view her most famous work in isolation. Yet Wollstonecraft's pronouncements about women grew out of her reflections about men, and her views on the female sex constituted an integral part of a wider moral and political critique of her times which she first fully formulated in A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790).

Three works of fiction, two by Mary Wollstonecraft, and one by her daughter Mary Shelley, creator of Frankenstein. In Mary Wollstonecraft's Mary, the heroine flees her young husband in order to nurse her dearest friend, Ann, and finds genuine love, while Maria tells of a desperate young woman who seeks consolation in the arms of another man after the loss of her child. And Mary Shelley's Matilda - suppressed for more than a century - tells the story of a woman alienated from society by the incestuous passion of her father.

This story is, in essence, the novelization of Wollstonecraft's ultimate work, Vindication of the Rights of Women. It follows a girl who grows up in a moderately wealthy English family in 18th century, trying to find love and individuality in a time when such concepts are incomprehensible to society. Mary, the main character, follows life and love through a turbulent series of ups and downs while trying to remain true to herself.

The Last Man is Mary Shelley's apocalyptic fantasy of the end of human civilisation. Set in the late 21st century, the novel unfolds a sombre and pessimistic vision of mankind confronting inevitable destruction. Interwoven with her futuristic theme, Mary Shelley incorporates idealised portraits of Shelley and Byron, yet rejects Romanticism and its faith in art and nature.

In A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Mary Wollstonecraft tackles the wasted potential she sees in women, refusing to see them as inferior to men; she decries their limitations and suggests that they are worthy of an equal standard of education, and that they should be taught to develop their own reason, not simply how to gain a man. Written in 1792, at the height of the French Revolution, A Vindication is an eloquent and persuasive response to the prevailing attitudes of the time.

At once a Gothic thriller, a passionate romance, and a cautionary tale about the dangers of science, Frankenstein tells the story of committed science student Victor Frankenstein. Obsessed with discovering "the cause of generation and life" and "bestowing animation upon lifeless matter", Frankenstein assembles a human being from stolen body parts. However, upon bringing it to life, he recoils in horror at the creature's hideousness.

Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Shelley's wife Mary, who was then only nineteen, all agreed to each compose ghost stories. Mary Shelley's story came to her during a restive night: "I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion." The result of her vision, which she later published as a full length novel, became the most famous and compelling horror story of all time.

Mary Wollstonecraft is an undisputed icon for women’s rights, and this is not a status she earned lightly. Daring to demand equality at a time when it was incredibly risky to do so, Wollstonecraft developed a long resume of standing up to those that wished to subvert her rights and the rights of those she loved. She stood up to her own father as a teenager when he abused her mother, and she didn’t hesitate to help her sister escape from a similarly tyrannical husband. 

Frankenstein begins in epistolary form, documenting the correspondence between Captain Robert Walton and his sister, Margaret Walton Saville. Walton sets out to explore the North Pole and expand his scientific knowledge in hopes of achieving fame and friendship. The ship becomes trapped in ice, and, one day, the crew sees a dog sled in the distance, on which there is the figure of a giant man. Hours later, the crew finds a frozen and emaciated man, Victor Frankenstein, in desperate need of sustenance.

Charlotte Gordon's new work is a fresh look at the lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley, who together comprise one of the most illustrious and inspiring mother-daughter pairs in history.

Mary Wollstonecraft is the author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), one of the earliest works of feminist philosophy. She has been called Britain’s first feminist. Her daughter Mary Shelley is the author of the novel Frankenstein (1818). This biography was written by Elizabeth Robin Pennell. It was her first book, written before she was thirty. She was married that year to illustrator and artist Joseph Pennell.

Following the framework of a tale within a tale, Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein, which features the subtitle The Modern Prometheus follows the scientific - and at times horrific - exploits of Victor Frankenstein. Victor studied alchemy in college, and after a mere two years he figures out that he can put human body pieces back together and restore the entire corpse to life.

It tells the story of a young woman whose mother died in her childbirth - just as Shelly's own mother died after hers - and whose relationship with her bereaved father becomes sexually charged as he conflates her with his lost wife, while she becomes involved with a handsome poet.

August, 1797. Midwife Parthenia Blenkinsop has delivered countless babies, but nothing prepares her for the experience that unfolds when she arrives at Mary Wollstonecraft’s door. Over the 11 harrowing days that follow, as Mrs. Blenkinsop fights for the survival of both mother and newborn, Mary Wollstonecraft recounts the life she dared to live amidst the impossible constraints and prejudices of the late 18th century, rejecting the tyranny of men and marriage, risking everything to demand equality for herself and all women.

First published in 1792, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman tackles many of the punitive patriarchal attitudes that dominated 18th-century society. With warmth and passion, Mary Wollstonecraft urges women to prioritize reason over emotion - a necessary step in building the strength of character required to break free from male notions of female fragility and foolishness. Wollstonecraft bases much of her argument in the case for women's education.

Writing in an age when the call for the rights of man had brought revolution to America and France, Mary Wollstonecraft produced her own declaration of female independence in 1792. Passionate and forthright, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman attacked the prevailing view of docile, decorative femininity and instead laid out the principles of emancipation: an equal education for girls and boys, an end to prejudice and for women to become defined by their profession, not their partner.

One of the earliest works of feminist philosophy, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman advocates for the education of women in a time where the opposite belief was predominately held. Written during the French Revolution, Wollstonecraft's work had a significant impact on those advocating for women's rights during the nineteenth century.

Frankenstein is infused with some elements of the Gothic novel and the Romantic movement and is also considered to be one of the earliest examples of science fiction. Includes introduction and commentary by Mary Shelley. Required reading for any fan of science fiction and horror genres. A classic.

Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus is an 1818 novel written by English author Mary Shelley. Frankenstein tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment. Shelley started writing the story when she was 18, and the first edition was published anonymously in London on January 1, 1818, when she was 20. Her name first appeared in the second edition, which was published in Paris in 1821.

Victor Frankenstein is a driven man. His single-minded scientific drive has controlled his life from childhood. It has driven him to do the unthinkable, to carry out fiendish, craven tasks, to do that which only God has done before. His goal of creating life - a living, thinking being, a man - has come to pass. Little did he expect that his zeal would forge a monster, an intelligent being set upon Victor's complete destruction.