Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, credited to Elizabeth Robins Pennell, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin by Elizabeth Robins Pennell. Read in English by Pamela Nagami "Few women have worked so faithfully for the cause of humanity as Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin [1759-1797], and few have been the objects of such censure...The young were bidden not to read her books, and the more mature warned not to follow her example, the miseries she endured being declared the just retribution of her actions." So begins this short, vivid biography of Mary Wollstonecraft by the American expatriate author, Elizabeth Robins Pennell. We read how Wollstonecraft's father, an unstable, irascible, and often violent alcoholic squandered his fortune and dragged his large family from lodging to lodging. Her mother, a rigid disciplinarian of her children, was his abject slave. A brilliant autodidact, Mary left a position as a governess and moved by herself to London, where she lived by translating and writing. In 1790 she became famous defending the French Revolution against the attacks of Edmund Burke in her "Vindication of the Rights of Man." This was followed in 1792 by her most influential work, "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman." After becoming pregnant out of wedlock, she was deserted by her lover, Gilbert Imlay and attempted suicide. In 1797 she married William Godwin, but died of post-partum septicemia (childbed fever) following the birth of her second daughter, the future Mary Shelley, author of "Frankenstein." - Summary by Pamela Nagami

Recording facts

• Recording title: Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin
• Author credits: Elizabeth Robins Pennell
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 15
• Listed recording duration: 7:21:29

Catalogue topics

• french revolution
• feminism
• women's rights
• mary wollstonecraft
• mary shelley
• william godwin

Track guide

1. 00 - Introduction — 7:51
2. 01 - Childhood and Early Youth. 1759-1778 — 29:33
3. 02 - First Years of Work. 1778-1785 — 51:26
4. 03 - Life as Governess. 1786-1788 — 45:21
5. 04 - Literary Life. 1788-1791 — 36:56
6. 05 - Literary Work. 1788-1791 — 12:58
7. 06 - 'Vindication of the Rights of Women' — 23:55
8. 07 - Visit to Paris. 1792-1793 — 51:02
9. 08 - Life with Imlay. 1793-1794 — 25:50
10. 09 - Imlay's Desertion. 1794-1795 — 33:53
11. 10 - Literary Work. 1793-1796 — 26:10
12. 11 - Retrospective. 1794-1796 — 10:23
13. 12 - William Godwin — 34:38
14. 13 - Life with Godwin: Marriage. 1796-1797 — 24:32
15. 14 - Last Months: Death. 1797 — 27:01

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Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.