Over two hundred years ago in England, this extraordinary young woman described herself as "the first of a new genus" - an unmarried female who supported herself by her own mental labors as writer, reviewer, and translator.

In 1792, she created a furor with A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, her impassioned plea for the liberation of her half of the human race. Nevertheless, in the repressive political climate of the period, the book was virtually buried along with its author, who died tragically five years later at the age of thirty-eight.

Today, however, Mary Wollstonecraft is universally acknowledged as the pioneer advocate of women's rights. But she was more than that. Her genius and breadth of vision enabled her to relate the status of women to human rights in general, to education, and to social justice.

In this selection of passages from her published letters and writings, the most cogent of her arguments and observations - on topics ranging from marriage and the frippery of dress and behavior to economic exploitation and political corruption - can be enjoyed and appreciated for the way she "speaks to us today across a gap of almost two centuries with a voice of courage and hope," as Eleanor Flexner wrote in a 1972 biography.