Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft & Mary Shelley
By Charlotte Gordon
Why this book?
Romantic Outlaws is the fascinating double biography of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley, telling the story of two extraordinary women—a mother and daughter who never met—who were centuries ahead of their time, each embracing feminist ideals that in the late 18th century made them social outcasts. They dared to believe that women were equal to men, eschewing the “marriage market that sold women’s love for carriages and pin allowances.” Mary Wollstonecraft was the philosopher and revolutionary writer who first championed equal rights for women. (Also, her Letters Written From Sweden is the first travel memoir to focus on personal impressions of a place rather than just geographical facts.) And of course, her daughter Mary Shelley was part of a challenge to pen a ghost story, along with husband Percy Shelley and Lord George Byron. Mary’s Frankenstein won the contest hands-down.
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