MW born on 27 April in Spitalfields, London to Edward John Wollstonecraft, the son of a weaver, and Elizabeth Dickson Wollstonecraft, who was Irish. MW is the second of seven children. Her older brother, Edward (Ned) was born in 1757; Henry followed in 1761, Elizabeth (Eliza) in 1763, Everina in 1765, James in 1768, and Charles in 1770.
Determined to set up as a gentleman farmer, MW’s father moves his family successively from London to Epping, Barking (both outside London), and Beverley (in Yorkshire). Unsuccessful in these (and later) efforts, MW’s father is violent at home. Disgusted with her father’s brutality, contemptuous of her mother’s acquiescence to it, and resentful of their shared preference for her older brother, MW is intensely unhappy at home and driven to seek affection and nurture elsewhere. While in Beverley, MW develops a close friendship with Jane Arden.
The Wollstonecraft family moves to Hoxton, on the outskirts of London. MW is befriended by a neighboring clergyman, Mr Clare, and his wife, who assist in MW’s education and become a second family for her.
Through the Clares, MW first meets and develops an intense friendship with Fanny Blood, later the model for Ann in Mary and the namesake of her first daughter.
The Wollstonecraft family moves to Laugharne, Wales
The Wollstonecraft family returns to Walworth, a suburb of London.
As her father’s finances continue to deteriorate, MW resolves to live away from home and takes a job as a paid companion to Mrs Dawson, of Bath, one of the few kinds of employment conventionally open to women of Wollstonecraft’s position. While employed by her, MW visits Bath, Windsor, and Southampton.
MW’s mother becomes sick, and MW goes to London to nurse her.
MW’s mother dies. MW’s father remarries and moves to Wales. Angry with the familial indifference of her older brother, now an attorney in London, MW feels responsible for the care of her siblings. MW moves in with Fanny Blood’s family in Walham Green, west of London, and helps to support them as well. In October, MW’s sister Eliza marries Meredith Bishop.
MW’s sister Eliza gives birth to a daughter in August, and thereafter suffers from acute postpartum depression. Fearing a repeat of her parents’ marriage, MW attributes her sister’s unhappiness to Bishop’s cruelty.
MW convinces Eliza to take the bold step of running away in secret from her husband and child, who dies later in the year. After an attempt to start a school in Islington fails, MW starts one at Newington Green, a dissenting community north of London, with Fanny Blood and Eliza. MW begins a friendship with the celebrated non-conforming preacher Richard Price, and she becomes a member of his circle. MW is introduced to Dr. Samuel Johnson. Everina Wollstonecraft joins her sisters at Newington Green.
Fanny Blood leaves the school at Newington Green, and sails for Lisbon to marry Hugh Skeys. MW journeys to Lisbon to assist Fanny during her pregnancy. Fanny dies in childbirth in late November. MW returns to London in December.
MW closes her school because of financial problems that had mounted during her absence. To raise money and improve her spirits, MW begins Thoughts on the Education of Daughters. Faced with debts, MW helps her sisters find positions as teachers, and agrees to become a governess for the Viscount Kingsborough family of Mitchelstown (County Cork) in Ireland. On her way to Ireland, MW visits Eton, confirming her disapproval of public school education and suggesting material she would later use in her education writings. MW passes the winter with the Kingsboroughs in Dublin.
Thoughts on the Education of Daughters is published by Joseph Johnson, earning MW 10 guineas, which she gives to the Blood family. MW travels with the Kingsboroughs to Bristol, and composes Mary and “Cave of Fancy.” In August Lady Kingsborough dismisses MW, in part because she disapproves of her daughter’s attachment to her. Returning to London and working as a reader and translator with Joseph Johnson, MW begins her career with a hard-earned sense of satisfaction. She joins Johnson’s circle of progressive writers and artists, eventually meeting such figures as Thomas Holcroft, Henry Fuseli, Joel Barlow, Horne Tooke, and Anna Letitia Barbauld.
Mary: A Fiction, Original Stories from Real Life and Of the Importance of Religious Opinions (trans. from Necker) published by Joseph Johnson. MW begins reviewing for the Analytical Review, a monthly progressive periodical recently started by Joseph Johnson and Thomas Christie.
The Female Reader published, under pseudonym of Mr. Cresswick. On 14 July, the Bastille falls, and the French Revolution begins.
MW publishes Young Grandison, a translation of Maria van de Werken de Cambon’s adaptation of Richardson’s novel, and a translation of Salzmann’s Elements of Morality, illustrated by William Blake. On 29 November, MW publishes A Vindication of the Rights of Men anonymously, in response to Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France (published 1 November). On 18 December, MW’s second edition is published, bearing MW’s name and establishing her reputation as a partisan of reform.
MW publishes a second edition of Original Stories, illustrated by Blake, and starts writing A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. MW meets William Godwin for the first time through Joseph Johnson in November.
MW’s portrait is painted by an unknown artist. In January, MW publishes A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, which receives several favorable reviews. MW meets Talleyrand, whose proposals regarding women’s education in France had disappointed her. A second edition of the Rights of Woman, somewhat revised, is published later that year. MW plans to write a “Second Part” but never does so, though Godwin published her “Hints [Chiefly designed to have been incorporated in the Second Part of the Vindication of the Rights of Woman]” in her Posthumous Works (1798). MW becomes passionately attached to the painter Henry Fuseli. After Fuseli and his wife refuse to let her join their household as she wishes, MW departs alone for France in December. In Paris, she meets leading Girondins and English friends of the Revolution, including Helen Maria Williams and Tom Paine.
On 21 January, Louis XVI is executed. On 1 February, France declares War on England, and English nationals come under suspicion. MW meets American fellow radical Gilbert Imlay and begins her affair with him. MW’s friends, the Girondists, fall from power in late May. The Reign of Terror begins, dampening MW’s enthusiasm for the Revolution. In June, MW moves from Paris to Neuilly to escape increasing revolutionary violence. MW is pregnant and returns to Paris in September. Although they are not married, Imlay registers MW at the American Embassy as his wife so that she can claim the protection of American citizenship (America being an ally of France during this time). On 16 October, Marie-Antoinette is executed.
In January MW moves to Le Havre and starts writing An Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution. Fanny Imlay born in May at Le Havre. In late July, Robespierre falls and the Terror ends. Imlay returns to England, leaving MW and Fanny alone. In December, MW’s An Historical and Moral View of the French Revolution is published in London.
In April, MW returns to London to join Imlay, and learns of his infidelity. MW attempts suicide, but is prevented by Imlay. In June, MW agrees to travel to Scandinavia with her infant daughter Fanny and with Marguerite, their maid, in connection with Imlay’s business concerns. MW returns to England in September. In October, increasingly depressed over her disintegrating relationship with Imlay, MW attempts suicide by jumping off Putney Bridge into the Thames. Anti-sedition legislation is passed in England.
In January, MW publishes Letters Written during a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. In March, she meets Imlay for the final time, and in April meets Godwin again. MW starts to write Wrongs of Woman. By mid-summer, MW begins her relationship with Godwin.
John Opie paints MW’s portrait. On 29 March, MW marries Godwin at Old St. Pancras Church, although the couple retain separate households. Their marriage is something of a scandal, in part because Godwin had denounced marriage as an monopolistic institution, and in part because its occurrence underscored the fact that MW had not in fact been previously married to Imlay. Some friends drop MW as a result. Their daughter, Mary, born on 30 August. MW dies on 10 September of complications resulting from childbirth, and is buried at St. Pancras Churchyard.
Godwin publishes MW’s Posthumous Works, including The Wrongs of Woman, or Maria, “The Cave of Fancy,” her Letters to Imlay and other miscellaneous pieces. Also included is Godwin’s own controversial Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, MW’s first biography.