Original Stories from Real Life
Original Stories from Real Life; with Conversations Calculated to Regulate the Affections, and Form the Mind to Truth and Goodness is the only complete work of children's literature by the 18th-century English feminist author Mary Wollstonecraft. Original Stories begins with a frame story that sketches out the education of two young girls by their maternal teacher Mrs. Mason, followed by a series of didactic tales. The book was first published by Joseph Johnson in 1788; a second, illustrated edition, with engravings by William Blake, was released in 1791 and remained in print for around a quarter of a century.
Title page from Barbauld's Lessons for Children (1778–79)
Mary Wollstonecraft by John Opie (c. 1791)
Title page from Rousseau's Emile (1762)
Sketch for the frontispiece for the 1791 edition of Original Stories, by William Blake. Scanned from Blake's sketch and digitally restored.
Mary Wollstonecraft was a British writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights. Until the late 20th century, Wollstonecraft's life, which encompassed several unconventional personal relationships at the time, received more attention than her writing. Today Wollstonecraft is regarded as one of the founding feminist philosophers, and feminists often cite both her life and her works as important influences.
Wollstonecraft c. 1797
Wollstonecraft in 1790–91, by John Opie
Frontispiece to the 1791 edition of Original Stories from Real Life engraved by William Blake
10 August attack on the Tuileries Palace; French revolutionary violence spreads