"This literary life shows how pioneer feminist Mary Wollstonecraft was nurtured by the intellectual climate of Rational Dissent. Nonconformist circles afforded this autodidact-turned-teacher the opportunity of living solely by the pen and becoming a woman of letters during the revolutionary decade. Though famous for two of the most original political polemics of the Revolutionary Debate, Wollstonecraft was also notable as a novelist, educationalist, children's writer, translator, reviewer, letter-writer, historian and travel-writer. She became one of the most highly regarded female intellectuals in Europe. This story of her professional career takes us from provincial Yorkshire to North London suburban radicalism; from the high life of Dublin to the hacks of Grub Street; from the crowds in Paris during the Terror, to the lonely landscapes of Scandinavia. It follows the highs and lows of Wollstonecraft's Utopian belief that participation in the sphere of print culture was the best way to enlighten and change the world."--BOOK JACKET.