William Godwin und Mary Wollstonecraft

What it is

This is a scanned German-language book written by Helene Simon and published in Munich in 1909. It is a biographical and sociological study of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, two English writers connected by marriage and shared ideas. The digitized copy is held by the Internet Archive.

Why it matters

This book shows how later scholars, more than a century after Wollstonecraft's death, studied her life and thought alongside Godwin's, placing both figures in the context of the French Revolution's influence on Britain. It reflects how Wollstonecraft came to be remembered as an early leader of the women's movement and Godwin as an early theorist of anarchism.

Look closer

• Why might a German scholar in 1909 be interested in English writers from over a century earlier?
• What does it mean that this is a secondary source rather than something Wollstonecraft wrote herself?
• How might studying Godwin and Wollstonecraft together change how we understand each of them?