Wollstonecraft, Mary

The author and early feminist Mary Wollstonecraft was born in the district of Spitalfields, London. Because of her father's tendency to speculate in various projects, she and her many siblings moved homes frequently and her education was neglected for the benefit of her brothers. When she was nineteen years old, Wollstonecraft left home to become a companion to a lady in Bath. She opened a school with her friend Fanny Blood and two of her sisters in 1784, but it only lasted two years.