After her mother’s death Mary lived for a short time at the home of her friend, Fanny Blood, at Walham Green, supporting herself by needle-work, but was soon called to the care of her sister Eliza, (then Mrs. Bishop), who was temporarily insane. On Mrs. Bishop’s recovery she left her husband, and the two sisters went to Islington, where they endeavored to live by teaching. In a few months Mary removed to Newington Green, where she was successful in setting up a school. In the autumn of 1785, however, she was summoned to Fanny Blood (then Mrs. Skeys), who was ill in Lisbon; and on her return, after Fanny’s death, she found that it was impossible to regain her pupils. At this time she wrote a small pamphlet called _Thoughts on the Education of Daughters_, for which Mr. Johnson, a bookseller in Fleet Street, gave her ten guineas. She applied the money to the relief of Fanny Blood’s parents. A situation as governess being offered her, she went to Ireland, where she remained until the autumn of 1788; she then came to London to earn her living by her pen. At this period she wrote _Mary_, a tale drawn from her own friendship with Fanny Blood, and not now to be found; _Original Stories from Real Life_, a book for children, published with cuts by William Blake; translated for Mr. Johnson ‘Necker on Religious Opinions,’ Salzman’s ‘Elements of Morality,’ and Lavater’s ‘Physiognomy,’ and contributed to the Analytical Review. In 1791 she put forth an answer to Burke’s ‘Reflections on the French Revolution,’ entitled _A Vindication of the Rights of Man_; this was followed by her _magnum opus_, A VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN. In December, 1792, she went to Paris; was detained there by the state of public affairs; and in 1793 became, says Mr. C. Kegan Paul, “the wife” of Gilbert Imlay. Her modern biographer and defender has chosen thus to mark unmistakably his fine reverence for her purity of motive; but more than half the significance of the tragedy that followed is lost by regarding Mary as Imlay’s wife. Their daughter, Fanny Imlay, was born in the spring of 1794. Imlay gradually disengaged himself from Mary; and on her return to London from a voyage to Norway and Sweden, undertaken to assist him in business affairs, she had poignant proof of his unfaithfulness and his intention to desert her. She attempted to drown herself in the Thames. She was rescued, took up the burden of life again for Fanny’s sake, and lived to marry William Godwin, the author of ‘Caleb Williams’ and ‘Political Justice.’ On the 30th of August, 1797, was born Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, afterwards the wife of Shelley; and on the 10th of September the mother died.