This travel memoir narrates Wollstonecraft's journey through Scandinavia, accompanied by her young daughter; the letters are addressed to an unnamed lover. Passionate and personal, the letters also explore the comparative political and social systems of Europe. The result is a travel book that is both as much a work of political thought as Wollstonecraft's more well-known treatises, and an innovative and influential work in the genre.
This travel memoir narrates Wollstonecraft's journey through Scandinavia, accompanied by her young daughter; the letters are addressed to an unnamed lover. Passionate and personal, the letters also explore the comparative political and social systems of Europe. The result is a travel book that is both as much a work of political thought as Wollstonecraft's more well-known treatises, and an innovative and influential work in the genre.
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
Mary Wollstonecraft: A Brief Chronology
A Note on the Text
Letters Written during a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, andDenmark
Appendix A: Wollstonecraft and the Revolutionary Debate
Appendix B: Two Other Responses to the French Revolution
Appendix C: Biographical Documents Related to Wollstonecraft’s Travels in Scandinavia
Appendix D: Wollstonecraft’s Reviews of Travel Writing from the Analytical Review, 1789-92
Appendix E: Some Examples of Late Eighteenth-Century Travel Writing in Various Modes
Appendix F: Two Sentimental Encounters
Appendix G: Contemporary Reviews of A Short Residence
Appendix H: Godwin’s Framing of A Short Residence
Works Cited/Select Bibliography
Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) was an English
political philosopher, novelist, and travel writer. Her Vindication
of the Rights of Woman is considered a foundational text of modern
feminism.
Ingrid Horrocks is Lecturer, School of English and
Media Studies, Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand.
“Since its publication in 1796, Wollstonecraft’s Short Residence has been recognized as her most beautiful and alluring work. A travelogue in letters, it is also a sophisticated experiment in genre. Historical reflection, ethnography, political and economic critique, philosophical reverie, and feminist memoir all take their turns as Wollstonecraft maps the limits of her idealism. Horrocks’ edition does justice to the magnificence and complexity of these Letters. The appendices alone provide material for an entire course in contemporary travel-writing, linking it to literary, philosophical, sentimental, and feminist concerns. An unparalleled achievement for Wollstonecraft scholarship and Romantic Studies.” — Mary Favret, Indiana University, Bloomington“Ingrid Horrocks’ broad-ranging introduction and selection of appendices function as a highly useful interpretive guidebook to the travel writings that they accompany. The judicious survey of texts concerning the revolutionary debate, late-eighteenth-century travel narratives, sentimental journeying, and biographical documents related to Wollstonecraft’s Scandinavian travels enable readers clearly to envision just how widely, and into what still-unsettled territories, Wollstonecraft’s travel writing extends. Horrocks’ emphasis on Wollstonecraft’s role as business partner augments the series of poses (ethnographer, mother, victim) that scholars have ascribed to ‘the little hero of each tale,’ thereby further loosening the boundaries between sentiment and calculation that Wollstonecraft’s entire life-writings work to achieve.” — Julie Carlson, University of California, Santa Barbara
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