A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

A thoughtful and useful abridgement of an essential historical, political, and philosophical text. [Barnard and Shapiro] have managed to preserve the tone and arguments of the original while shedding much of the redundancy and lengthy quotations of external sources that can be off-putting and cumbersome for today's readers. The explanatory footnotes added to the text are helpful without being overbearing. --Katrin Schultheiss, George Washington University

A very judicious selection from the Vindication, and the related texts do a great job of setting Wollstonecraft's arguments within contemporary debates about women's education and, more broadly, eighteenth-century political philosophy. The editorial apparatus is also thorough and useful--especially the notes, which are outstanding. In short, the editors have created a fresh and stimulating new edition of Wollstonecraft's Vindication that will be infinitely useful in the classroom. --Sarah Gwyneth Ross, Boston College