A study of Mary Wollstonecraft and The Rights of Woman

Rauschenbusch-Clough Emma

Published by Longmans, Green, and Co. 39 Paternoster Row London New York and Bombay, hardcover

PREFACE.
MY attention was first directed to the subject of this book by Professor Dr. M. Heinze, of the University of Leipzig. He observed. in conversation, that though much was being written on the subject of the position of woman and on the movement in connection with her emancipation. comparatively little was being done by way of patient research in the annals of the past, to define the influences which have resulted in the social revolution of the present day. As a center for possible investigation of this kind, he mentioned Mary Wolistonecraft, her work and her times.

Following his suggestion. I took a survey of that which hact been done in this particular direction, and found that Mr. C. Kegan Paul, Mary Wollstonecraft's biographer in recent times, had done valuable work in editing letters by her in connection with his work on William Godwin, his Friends and Contemporaries, London, 1876.

His work had formed the foundation for several biographical sketches. A full analytical and critical investigation of her views, as they had found expression in her lift and works, with a survey of the influences which had moulded her thought, had yet to he given. This was the talk which I made my own.

In the spring of 1894, the result of my research in form of an Inaugural Dissertation was presented to the Faculty of the University of Bern in Switzerland, and was accepted by Professor Dr. Ludwig Stein of the Department of Philosophy. as a part of the usual examination for the Doctorate in Philosophy.

Meantime I had come to a realization that my subject was far from being exhausted. Professor Stein suggested further research in several directions. Mr. C. Kegan Paul kindly placed at my disposal several of the works of Mary Wollstonecraft, which it had previously been impossible for me to obtain. Dr. Richard Garnett of the British Museum aided me in mv search for additional material dwing a short sojourn in Londen.

During a summer vacation spent at Donaueschingen in the Black Forest in Germany. the Librarian of the Fiirstlich Ffirstenbergische Bibliothek, located there, spared no pains in helping me to Eind traces of Mary Wollstonecraft's influence upon her German contemporaries.

At the University Libraries of Zürich and Vienna 1 gathered the material for my hvpothesis concerning the literary indebtedness of Theodor Gottlieb von Hippel to Mary Wollstonecraft.
With this accumulation of additional material I returned to my home in India and began again. enlarging everywhere, adding much that was new.

Perhaps my work may be of some little service as a contribution toward historical research in a direction which has not received a large degree of attention thus far. though it has strong claims upon the student of to-day.

E. R. C.
ONGOLE, INDIA, 1896.