The Love Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft to Gilbert Imlay

What It's About

This is a collection of private letters written by Mary Wollstonecraft to Gilbert Imlay, the American businessman with whom she had a passionate and ultimately devastating love affair. Written between 1793 and 1796, the letters follow their relationship through her time in revolutionary France and her travels in Scandinavia, charting a course from infatuation through jealousy, betrayal, and heartbreak, as Imlay's affections cooled and he grew unfaithful. Raw and unfiltered, they were never intended for publication, offering a rare, unguarded view of Wollstonecraft as a woman rather than as the public intellectual she is best remembered as.

Key Concepts

The letters trace themes of romantic obsession, female vulnerability, and the gulf between Wollstonecraft's progressive public philosophy and the emotional turmoil of her private life. They also touch on her experiences of motherhood, her financial precarity as a woman largely dependent on an unreliable partner, and her observations of France during the Revolution and its aftermath.

About the Author

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) was an English writer and philosopher, widely regarded as an early and influential voice for women's rights. Born in London to a family whose fortunes declined through her childhood, she worked variously as a governess and teacher before establishing herself as a writer. She died shortly after giving birth to her daughter, who would grow up to write Frankenstein under the name Mary Shelley.