Women.- Wollstonecraft (Mary) A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects, Vol. 1 [all published], first edition, the odd short marginal tear, water-stained, foxed, some staining, lightly browned, original boards, sympathetically rebacked, modern printed label to spine, boards worn and stained, but solid, uncut, housed in a modern cloth-backed marbled boards drop-box, gilt, brown morocco label to spine, [Windle A5a; PMM 242; Goldsmiths' 15367], 8vo (227 x 135mm.), Printed for J. Johnson, 1792.

⁂ An early and highly important feminist manifesto, in which Wollstonecraft outlines how the equality of women cannot be achieved because of the quality of education available to them. The work is dedicated to Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, who in his report to the French National Assembly had called for the education of girls to be focused on domestic subjects. It was to be hoped that 'A Vindication' would cause a re-think in this attitude. However, the efforts of Wollstonecraft were over-shadowed by the revelations of her personal life that appeared in her husband William Godwin's Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman, 1798.