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A review by tumblyhome_caroline
Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley by Charlotte Gordon
5.0
I am utterly bereft at having finished Romantic Outlaws by Charlotte Gordon. The book is about the lives, politics, times and works of Mary Wollstonecraft and her daughter Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, it has completely carried me along and I don’t feel ready to leave their worlds.
I picked this up to read more about the daughter but I was completely in awe of her mother. She wasn’t at all as I had expected.. I suppose I expected a stern, forthright anarchist… but my expectations were turned upside down…her life was incredible in so many ways.
In the late 1700s, a time when women had no lives outside marriage, Wollstonecraft had the courage of her convictions, wrote forcibly about freedom, was a war correspondent (travelling to Paris during the French Revolution and writing about it), an independent traveller and travel writer and a flawed but brave woman. It was a completely WOW experience to read about her, interesting for what she achieved but also because she was, at times,so conflicted and messed up, a real person.
Mary Shelley’s life was also incredible and there was so much more to both women than I thought I knew. I see some other reviewers have slammed these women, and have done through the years since they lived. But they were far from cardboard cut out humans, they made mistakes, suffered for them, they forged strongly ahead and kept their core principles intact…
I highly, highly recommend this. Don’t expect virtuous women but do expect brave women who led extraordinary lives.
My only slight irritation is the cover of my book!!!!
It is the pink, it is the …ummm… childlike font, it is the trivialisation of the power within. I might have to growl about that. I mean! Did the person who designed this not read the book! Did the publishers not think.
The book talks about their work in the context of their lives but it upholds what I think important in a biography… it sticks to proof and facts…it doesn’t speculate. There are no numbered footnotes but there is a good list at the back of the book detailing source material.
The chapters are ordered in turns of mother, then daughter. I quite liked this because it was delayed gratification. The stories didn’t need to be rushed and by leaving one woman and moving to the other for a chapter at a time gave space for the women’s lives to breathe.
I now have a pile of Mary Wollstonecraft books to keep me busy..
I picked this up to read more about the daughter but I was completely in awe of her mother. She wasn’t at all as I had expected.. I suppose I expected a stern, forthright anarchist… but my expectations were turned upside down…her life was incredible in so many ways.
In the late 1700s, a time when women had no lives outside marriage, Wollstonecraft had the courage of her convictions, wrote forcibly about freedom, was a war correspondent (travelling to Paris during the French Revolution and writing about it), an independent traveller and travel writer and a flawed but brave woman. It was a completely WOW experience to read about her, interesting for what she achieved but also because she was, at times,so conflicted and messed up, a real person.
Mary Shelley’s life was also incredible and there was so much more to both women than I thought I knew. I see some other reviewers have slammed these women, and have done through the years since they lived. But they were far from cardboard cut out humans, they made mistakes, suffered for them, they forged strongly ahead and kept their core principles intact…
I highly, highly recommend this. Don’t expect virtuous women but do expect brave women who led extraordinary lives.
My only slight irritation is the cover of my book!!!!
It is the pink, it is the …ummm… childlike font, it is the trivialisation of the power within. I might have to growl about that. I mean! Did the person who designed this not read the book! Did the publishers not think.
The book talks about their work in the context of their lives but it upholds what I think important in a biography… it sticks to proof and facts…it doesn’t speculate. There are no numbered footnotes but there is a good list at the back of the book detailing source material.
The chapters are ordered in turns of mother, then daughter. I quite liked this because it was delayed gratification. The stories didn’t need to be rushed and by leaving one woman and moving to the other for a chapter at a time gave space for the women’s lives to breathe.
I now have a pile of Mary Wollstonecraft books to keep me busy..