Core Curriculum : Contemporary Civilization

Rights > Wollstonecraft

Vindication of the Rights of Women

Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Women

London: Printed for J. Johnson, 1792

Columbia RBML Plimpton 396 1792 G54

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Both the first and second editions of Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Women were published in 1792, the date on this copy’s title page. The publisher released the second because of the work’s popularity caused him to sell out within the year. Because Wollstonecraft made corrections to the hastily composed first edition, the second edition is more authoritative than the first, and is considered the last authoritative edition. In 1790, J. Johnson had published Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Men; in a letter to the Right Honourable Edmund Burke; occasioned by his Reflections on the Revolution in France (Columbia University RBML B824G549 Y3 1790). RBML also holds the first American edition of the Vindication of the Rights of Women, published in 1792 by William Gibbons in Philadelphia.

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