by Shari Randall
If you're expecting the story of two prim and proper ladies of the late 1700s and early 1800s, look elsewhere. This mother and daughter were passionate trailblazers who continually pushed against the limits placed upon them by society. And the drama! Romantic Outlaws reads like an opera (and even a soap opera), with heightened passions, life and death stakes, and a cast of characters that's a who's who of Enlightenment and Georgian Europe.
Mary Wollstonecraft was a philosopher and author of the groundbreaking A Vindication of the Rights of Women. She died in 1787 after giving birth to daughter Mary.
Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin grew up to become Mary Shelley, wife of the Romantic poet Percy Shelley and author of the groundbreaking 1818 novel, Frankenstein.
The biography's dual structure, with one chapter about Mary Wollstonecraft alternating with one about Mary Shelley, underscores the similar challenges each woman faced in her unorthodox personal and professional life. Though Mary Shelley never knew her revolutionary mother, her mother's writings were a North Star she followed, for better or worse, all her life. Far from being a dry biography, Romantic Outlaws reads like a juicy and surprising historical novel.
Highly recommended.
Have you read a good biography lately?
Shari Randall is the author of the Lobster Shack Mystery series and, as Meri Allen, the Ice Cream Shop Mystery series. She loves biographies.
