Abstract

This article sets out to show that Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) was translated by Félicité Brissot de Warville, the wife of the prominent Girondin leader, Jacques-Pierre Brissot de Warville, and annotated by both. The demonstration is carried out through a study of the works translated by them, together or singly, before 1792: the annotation of those earlier works is echoed by the themes of the notes in the later chapters of the Vindication. These notes reflect J.-P. Brissot’s admiration for Quakers and for British intellectual figures such as Richard Price and Joseph Priestley (whom he knew), dislike of clergy and interest in education. Two long notes also express Félicité’s frustration at being confined to the role of mother and housewife, and can be paralleled with statements in her correspondence. To some extent, she appears as an alter ego of Wollstonecraft.