Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–97) is revered by feminists as the author of A vindication of the rights of woman (1792), which advocated the rational education of women as a matter of public and national importance. She also published fiction, travel writing, criticism and educational books. While living in Revolutionary France in 1794, Wollstonecraft gave birth to a daughter, Frances, by her American lover, Gilbert Imlay. In 1797 Wollstonecraft married the English novelist and political philosopher William Godwin. She died the same year following the birth of their daughter Mary, who later married Percy Bysshe Shelley and authored Frankenstein (1818).
