The Project Gutenberg EBook of Maria, by Mary Wollstonecraft

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Title: Maria
The Wrongs of Woman

Author: Mary Wollstonecraft

Release Date: March 8, 2006 [EBook #134]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARIA ***

Produced by Judith Boss and David Widger

MARIA

or

The Wrongs of Woman

by MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT

(1759-1797)

After the edition of 1798

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Original Etext Editor's Note:

In editing the electronic text I have put footnotes at the
bottom of the paragraph to which they refer. This sometimes
means that I have moved the text of the footnote to maintain
proximity to the text to which it refers.

Spellings as in the original are retained; only obvious
typographical errors have been corrected.
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CONTENTS

Preface by William S. Godwin

Author's Preface

Maria

MARIA

or

The Wrongs of Woman

PREFACE

THE PUBLIC are here presented with the last literary attempt of an
author, whose fame has been uncommonly extensive, and whose talents have
probably been most admired, by the persons by whom talents are estimated
with the greatest accuracy and discrimination. There are few, to whom
her writings could in any case have given pleasure, that would have
wished that this fragment should have been suppressed, because it is
a fragment. There is a sentiment, very dear to minds of taste and
imagination, that finds a melancholy delight in contemplating these
unfinished productions of genius, these sketches of what, if they had
been filled up in a manner adequate to the writer's conception, would
perhaps have given a new impulse to the manners of a world.

The purpose and structure of the following work, had long formed a
favourite subject of meditation with its author, and she judged them
capable of producing an important effect. The composition had been in
progress for a period of twelve months. She was anxious to do justice
to her conception, and recommenced and revised the manuscript