A Vindication of the Rights of Men, in a Letter to the Right Honourable Edmund Burke

Mary Wollstonecraft's 1790 critique of Burkean conservatism established her as a public intellectual and remains a masterpiece of radical polemic.

In the first printed response to Edmund Burke's attacks on the principles of the French Revolution, Wollstonecraft argues powerfully against hereditary privilege and political conservatism, instead proposing codified civil rights and political liberty. This 1790 pamphlet marked Wollstonecraft's entry into the public intellectual arena and assured her place in history.Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) published A Vindication of the Rights of Men anonymously in 1790. The pamphlet sold out within three weeks to great acclaim, though later editions published under her own name met with notable opprobrium. It was the first of many printed responses to Edmund Burke's conservative attacks on the French Revolution, and it marked Wollstonecraft's entry into the intellectual arena of the late eighteenth century. She attacked hereditary privilege and political conservatism, arguing for codified civil rights and political liberty. She also highlighted Burke's gendered language and criticised his silence on the plight of women. Wollstonecraft has inspired reverence and revulsion alike, for both her work and her lifestyle. Her prescience and nonconformity, however, have secured her position in the canon of distinguished eighteenth-century political thinkers. For more information on this author, see http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=wollma