WOLLSTONECRAFT, Mary.
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects.
London: J. Johnson , 1792.
$32,500.00
Out of Stock
Item Number: RRB-106234
+$450
“It is vain to expect virtue from women till they are in some degree independent of men”: Exceptionally Rare First edition of Mary Wollstonecraft's landmark work A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in the original boards
Rare first edition of this landmark work in both Enlightenment philosophy and the history of feminism. Octavo, original boards, rebacked. From the library of Maryland bibliophile Charles J. MacGarvey with his armorial bookplate to the pastedown. MacGarvey created an extensive study entitled 'Notes On Adam Smith's Library and the Bonar Catalogue 1932', published in The Economic Journal, Volume 59, Issue 234 in June of 1949. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. Scarce and desirable. Virtually unobtainable in the original boards.
“Wollstonecraft’s major work caused an outcry when it was published and is hailed as a cornerstone of feminism…. The central theme of the work on women’s rights was that they should be educated to carry a responsibility in society equal to that of men. In disagreement with Rousseau… Wollstonecraft urged ‘rational fellowship instead of slavish obedience” (Legacies of Genius 64). "Although Wollstonecraft is best known as a feminist thinker, her philosophies are not limited to women’s issues… Wollstonecraft advocates liberty and equality for all humanity. Advancing arguments for political rights, she argues for the removal of traditional injustices of rank, property, class, and gender… The key to freedom lies in the reasoning individual conscience, not in laws or dogma… Wollstonecraft adamantly asserts that education inculcating reason will eventually emancipate all humankind from all forms of servitude (political, sexual, religious, or economic)” (Great Thinkers of the Western World, 322-327). The landmark work was written in a “plain and direct style, and it was this as well as the idea of writing a book on the subject at all, which caused the outcry that ensued… she argued for equality of education for both sexes… and co-education. It was a rational plea for a rational basis to the relation between the sexes… Its chief object was to show that women were not the playthings of men but ought to be their equal partners, which they could be only if they were educated in the same way” (PMM 242).
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects.
$32,500.00
Out of Stock
