Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Moral and Political Subjects.

Philadelphia: Printed and Sold by William Gibbons, 1792. Ful Description:

WOLLSTONECRAFT, Mary. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Moral and Political Subject. Philadelphia: Printed and Sold by William Gibbons, 1792.

First American Edition, printed the same year as the first London edition, and before the Boston edition. Twelvemo (6 3/8 x 4 inches; 164 x 104 mm). xvi, 17-274, [1, contents], [1, publisher's advertisement] pp.

Bound to style in full speckled calf. Boards double-ruled in gilt. Spine stamped in gilt. With red and black morocco spines labels, lettered in gilt. Edges speckled black. New endpapers. Some toning to leaves, as usual for American sheets. Previous owner's neat old ink signature on title-page and dedication page. Overall a very good copy.

In her dedication, Wollstonecraft wrote "‘that, if woman be not prepared by education to become the companion of man, she will stop the process of knowledge, for truth must be common to all.' The main part of her book was written in an equally plain and direct style, and it was this, as well as the idea of writing a book on the subject at all, which caused the outcry which ensued" (PMM).

In her life Wollstonecraft was the lover of Gilbert Imlay, the wife of William Godwin, and the mother of Mary Shelley; in her writing she is the daughter of Paine and Rousseau and the mother of the entire feminist movement.

Evans 25054. Windle A5d. Printing and the Mind of Man 242 (first English edition).

HBS 68742.

$8,500.