Happy birthday to two incredible literary ladies born on April 27 (1759 & 1882)

More love and recognition for Mary Wollstonecraft and Jessie Redmon Fauset!

In this Sunday edition of Literary Ladies Lite, I’ll be celebrating the birthdays of two literary figures who truly deserve more love and recognition. Born on April 27, 123 year apart, they were, and continue to be, hugely impactful. Birthday-wise, I’m in the Taurus company of these two writers who I admire immensely.

Another thing they have in common is that novelizations of their lives were recently published, introducing them to a new generation of readers. I’ll be getting more deeply into these and several other novelizations of real women’s lives in this coming week’s Wednesday edition.

There’s so much to say about Mary Wollstonecraft and Jessie Redmon Fauset, so let’s dive right in.

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Mary Wollstonecraft (April 27, 1759)

A recent novelization of Mary Wollstoncraft by N.J. Mastro brings this brilliant woman to life — I’ll be writing more about this and other novelizations of real women’s lives in a forthcoming edition.

Mary Wollstonecraft (April 27, 1759 – September 10, 1797) was a British author of fiction and nonfiction, philosopher, and women’s rights advocate. Though her body of work was fairly substantial, including many essays, a histories, and some fiction, she’s now best known for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792).

She was the mother of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (later known as Mary Shelley), the author of Frankenstein; sadly, she died a few days after giving birth to her namesake.

Stepping into adulthood after an unstable upbringing, Mary worked as a lady’s companion and governess, quickly realizing that she was ill-suited for these traditional female occupations. Frustrated at the lack of options for women to make a living, she wrote of this quandary in an early work, Thoughts on the Education of Daughters.

In 1792, Mary published A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects. Men and women, she argued, are born with the ability to reason, and therefore power and influence should be equally available regardless of gender. This was quite a radical view for its time. Read more in this appreciation of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. as well as Quotes from A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.

Obsessive love

Mary met and fell in love with Gilbert Imlay while traveling to Paris later in 1792. She began to live openly with Imlay, an American speculator, adventurer, and former Revolutionary War army captain without being married, which shocked society in France’s Reign of Terror era.