Mary Wollstonecraft was born on April 27th, 1759 in London. Her father, Edward John, inherited a large sum of money from his father who was an important weaver, but then lost it all while trying to become a higher-class farmer in Epping. The only member of the family to receive an education was Edward, Mary's Brother. Mary Wollstonecraft's education was scarse, and mostly based on the Bible and on the works of the ancient philosophers, similarly to the education of other women during the Enlightenment. Mary helped her sister, Eliza, to escape from a brutal and violent husband. After the arrangement of the legal separation, Mary and Eliza established a school at Newton Green (a primary school is still present an running for 234 years now). Such an experience inspired her to write the book Thoughts on the Education of Daughters: With Reflections on Female Conduct, in the More Important Duties of Life. She then moved to Ireland to work for the family of the lord Kingsborough as the governess.
In 1787, she moved back to London to start her literary career. She published her most famous work Vindication on the Rights of Woman, in which she reviewed any previous statements about women being 'helpless' as untrue. She also stated that the only way to help women gain a sense of self respect would be to educate them with the same education as that of men.
She then moved to Paris in 1792, where she collected information and evidence for her next book An Historical and Moral View of the Origins and Progress of the French Revolution: and the effect it has Produced in Europe, which criticized the violence present in the early years of the French Revolution. Wollstonecraft also wrote the book Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman, which was not finished when it was published in 1798. In this book, Wollstonecraft talked about the strength of the sexual desires of women, and that thinking otherwise would be immoral. This caused her to be frowned upon by the critics of the century.
She met Captain Gilbert Imlay in Paris, who she married and who became the father of her firstborn. He deserted her during her visit in Scandinavia, and consequently she tried to drown herself in the Thames. Later on, she went to live with William Goldwin, who became the father of her second child, and later on her husband as well (even though both of then thought of marriage as a form of tyranny). She gave birth to er daughter in August 1979, and then died on September 10 of the same year.