The Love Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft to Gilbert Imlay

dogs...." Lady Kingsborough was rather selfish and uncultured, and her chief object was the pursuit of pleasure. She pampered her dogs, much to the disgust of Mary Wollstonecraft, and neglected her children. What views she had on education were narrow. She had been accustomed to submission from her governess, but she learnt before long that Mary was not of a tractable disposition. The children, at first unruly and defiant, "literally speaking, wild Irish, unformed and not very pleasing," soon gave Mary their confidence, and before long their affection. One of her pupils, Margaret King, afterwards Lady Mountcashel, always retained the warmest regard for Mary Wollstonecraft. Lady Mountcashel continued her acquaintance with William Godwin after Mary's death, and later came across Shelley and his wife in Italy. Mary won from the children the affection that they withheld from their mother, consequently, in the autumn of 1788, when she had been with Lady Kingsborough for about a year, she received her dismissal. She had completed by this time the novel to which she gave the name of "Mary," which is a tribute to the memory of her friend Fanny Blood. II And now, in her thirtieth year, Mary Wollstonecraft had concluded her career as a governess, and was resolved henceforth to devote herself to literature. Her chances of success were slender indeed, for she had written nothing to encourage her for such a venture. It was her fortune, however, to make the acquaintance of Joseph Johnson, the humanitarian publisher and bookseller of St. Paul's Churchyard, who issued the works of Priestley, Horne Tooke, Gilbert Wakefield, and other men of advanced thought, and she met at his table many of the authors for whom he published, and such eminent men of the day as William Blake, Fuseli, and Tom Paine. Mr. Johnson, who afterwards proved one of her best friends, encouraged her in her literary plans.…