Bücher von Lyndall Gordon

"Wonderful, and deeply sobering. . . . Lyndall Gordon relates Wollstonecraft's story with the same potent mixture of passion and reason her subject personified."--New York Times Book ReviewThe founder of modern feminism, Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) was the most famous woman in Europe and America in her time. Yet her reputation over the years has suffered--until now. Acclaimed biographer Lyndall Gordon mounts a spirited defense of this brilliant, unconventional woman who held strikingly modern notions of education, single motherhood, family responsibilities, working life, domestic affections, friendships, and sexual relationships.Offering a new interpretation for the 21st century, Gordon paints a vibrant, full portrait of Wollstonecraft, revealing how this remarkable woman's genius reverberated through the generations, influencing not only her daughter, Mary Shelley, and other heirs, but early political philosophy in England and America as well--including the ideas of John and Abigail Adams.

"[T]he most informative, most nearly definitive, most judicious word on this major, modern writer."-Scott Elledge

This highly acclaimed biography looks beyond the insistent image of the modest Victorian lady, the slave to duty in the shadow of tombstones. Instead we see a strong, fiery woman who shaped her own life and transformed it into art. Lyndall Gordon looks at the shared gifts and class ambitions of the Bronte¿ family, and also at significant people-the active feminist Mary Taylor, the demanding mentor Constantin Heger, the rising publisher George Smith-whom Charlotte strove to possess in life and fiction. Drawing on unpublished letters, the "Roe Head Journal," early stories, the manuscript of Villette, and her last, unfinished novel, Lyndall Gordon explores the gaps in Charlotte Bronte¿'s life. How did she arrive at her understanding of passion from a woman's point of view? Could she resolve the testing conflict between a writer's life and a seemingly incongruous marriage to the devoted curate Arthur Bell Nicholls? Looking into the shadow between the facts, Gordon takes biography into that unseen space where this woman of genius was able to live.

Lyndall Gordon's biographical work on T. S. Eliot has won many dramatic accolades.