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Hello, by the time it was cut short in 1797 the life of the pioneering writer and think-a-marie Wilson craft was a gift to the obiturists

She escaped a grim upbringing at the hands of a spent-rift and brutal and drunken father and a bleak career as a governess to become a successful writer

She had made herself one of the leading intellectuals of her day and knew many of the others from Thomas Payne to William Godwin who became a husband

She had lambasted the political star of the era Edmund Burke for his attack on the French Revolution and

Gone on to write a vindication of the rights of woman and enduring classic and the founding text of the feminist movement and

She died in the wake of giving birth to the future author of Frankenstein

Given all this it isn't surprising that Mary Wilson craft has become something of an icon

But beyond her dazzling and notorious life story

She was a fine Enlightenment thinker whose work stands comparison with the leading British philosophers of the day with me to discuss

Mary Wilson craft a Barbara Taylor professor of modern history in the school of humanities and social sciences at the University of East London

John Mullin professor of English at University College London and

Karen Abrine professor of English at the University of Warwick

Karen Abrine can you give us some idea of Mary Wilson craft's early life?

Yes, she was born in 1759 to quite a wealthy family her grandfather had been a prosperous silk weaver in London

And her father inheriting some of this money decided that he wanted to move up the social scale and he bought a series of farms and tried

To live a life of gentility

But unfortunately he was very unsuccessful in these ventures

So Mary Wilson craft's childhood experience was one of essentially a downward social mobility and instability

And as a result as you mentioned in your introduction her father became increasingly brutal

drunk and blatantly unfaithful to his wife so this clearly marked her

...