In the ten years since the first Norton Critical Edition of Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, interest in her work has soared, with the result that the bibliography of works on her has doubled in size.. Not only has scholarly interest been invigorated; classroom teaching of women writers has burgeoned as well. This increased interest provides the environment for a new version of this Norton Critical Edition that includes more recent scholarly work and provides new and clarifies old footnote information, updates the bibliography, and puts into the hands of students and teachers a text that is useful, clear,and up-to-date.

The First Edition of this Norton Critical Edition was both an acclaimed classroom text and ahead of its time. This Second Edmon offers the best in Wollstonecraft scholarship and criticism since 1976 provid stoing the ideal means for studying the first feminist document in English 　　The text of the work remains that of Woltstonecraft's second edition of 1792, for scholarship has vindicated that choice. The annotations have been greatly expanded.

The "Backgrounds" section documents more fully the early concern for women's education, with important extracts from the work of John Locke and Mary Astell, as well as three more of Catharine Macauley's influential "Letters on Education."

A new section, "The Wollstonecraft Debate," provides a wide spectrum of opinions about the woman herself, from the nastiness of Richard Polwhele to the adulation of William Blake. balanced by the reasonable assessments Of George Eliot and Virginia Woolf.

The "Criticism" section retains the historically important essays and adds the best recent essays.

Preface to the Second Edition

Preface

Note on the Text

The Text of A Vindicationo　f the Rights of Woman

Backgrounds

　John Locke·From Some Thoughts Concerning Education

　 [Clothes]

　 [Cruelty]

　Mary Astell·From A Serious Proposal to the Ladies

　James Burgh·Of the Peculiar Management of Daughters

　Catharine Macaulay·From Letters on Education

　　Letter IV. Amusement and Instruction of Boys and Girls to Be the Same

　 Letter XXI. Morals Must Be Taught on

　 Immutable Principles

　 Letter XXII. No Characteristic Difference in Sex

　 Letter XXIII. Coquetry

　Mary Wollstonecrafl·Letter to Henry Gabell

　Ralph M. Wardle·[The Intellectual and Historical

　 Background of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman]

The Wollstonecraft Debate

　David Levine·Caricature of Mary Wollstonecrafl

　Mary Hays·Memoirs of Mary Wollstonecraft

　Thomas Taylor·From A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes

　William Godwin·From Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

　Richard Polwhele·From The Unsex'd Females

　Benjamin Silliman·From The Letters of Shahcoolen

　Robert Southey·To Mary Wollstonecraft

　William Blake·Mary

　George Saintsbury·[Mary Wollstonecraft in Literary History]

　George Eliot·Margaret Fuller and Mary Wollstonecraft

　Emma Goldman·Mary Wollstonecraft: Her Tragic Life and Her Passionate Struggle for Freedom

　Alice Wexler·Afterword [Emma Goldman, Mary

 Wollstonecraft, and Ruth Benedictt

　Virginia Woolf. Mary Wollstonecraft

　Ferdinand Lundberg and Marynia Farnham·[Mary

 Wollstonecraft and the Psychopathology of Feminism]

Criticism

　Emma Rauschenbusch-Clough·IMary Wollstonecraft's

　 Demands for the Education of Woman]

　Carolyn W. Korsmeyer·Reason and Morals in the Early

　 Feminist Movement: Mary Wollstonecraft

　R. M. Janes·On the Reception of Mary Wollstonecraft's

　 A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

　Elissa S. Guralnick·Radical Politics in Mary Wollstone-

　 craft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

　Moira Ferguson and Janet Todd·[Feminist Backgrounds

　 and Argument of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman]

　Mitzi Myers·Reform or Ruin: "A Revolution in

　 Female Manners"

　Mary Poovey·IA Vindication of the Rights of Woman and Female Sexuality]

Mary Wollstonecraft-A Chronology

Selected Bibliography