Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley

This excellent dual biography of Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–97) and her daughter Mary Shelley (1797–1851) by author Gordon (English, Endicott Coll.; Mistress Bradstreet) examines the profound influence Wollstonecraft had on Shelley and the impact both women have had on women's rights in succeeding generations. Although Wollstonecraft died days after Shelley's birth, her writing, especially that most famous volume, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, inspired Shelley to embrace her mother's radical ideas and heartfelt aspirations. Consequently, Shelley's essays, novels, travel books, reviews, and poetry emphasize the importance of education and independence for women and denounce male values of dominance and ambition. Gordon presents the lives of each woman chronologically in alternating chapters; this technique allows her to emphasize "the echo of Wollstonecraft in Shelley's letters, journals, and novels and demonstrate how often Wollstonecraft addressed herself to the future." Gordon's prose is compelling and her scholarship meticulous; her contention that both women led "lives as memorable as the words they left behind" is brilliantly supported.