William Godwin: his Friends and Contemporaries
Ch. VII. 1791-1796
Eliza Wollstonecraft Bishop to Everina Wollstonecraft, 15 August 1794
“Upton Castle, August 15th 1794.
[Enclosing copy of
the above.]
. . . “Can this be a dream, my heart’s best
friend? I would I could fancy these things matters of fact. I mean the poor
fellow’s wonderful good luck in so short a time. I own I want
faith” [her want of faith was justified; since Charles’s account of himself proved pure
brag], “nay, doubt my senses, so I have sent you word for word, to spell
and put together. . . . If Mary is actually married to Mr
Imlay, it is not impossible but she might settle there”
[in America] “too. Yet Mary cannot be Married!! It is natural to conclude her protector is her
husband. Nay, on reading Charles’s letter, I for an
instant believed it true. I would, my Everina, we were out of suspense, for all at present is
uncertainty and the most cruel suspense; still Johnson does not repeat things at random, and that the very
same tale should have crossed the Atlantic makes me almost believe that the
once M. is now Mrs Imlay, and a
mother. Are we ever to see this mother and her babe?”
Mary Godwin [née Wollstonecraft] (1759-1797)
English feminist, author of
Vindication of the Rights of Woman
(1792); she married William Godwin in 1797 and died giving birth to their daughter
Mary.
Gilbert Imlay (1754-1828)
American writer, speculator, and radical who fathered a child, Fanny Imlay, with Mary
Wollstonecraft.
Joseph Johnson (1738-1809)
London bookseller at St. Paul's Churchyard; he published Erasmus Darwin, Mary
Wollstonecraft, Joseph Priestly, and William Wordsworth.
Charles Wollstonecraft (1770-1817)
The son of Edward John Wollstonecraft and younger brother of Mary Wollstonecraft; he
emigrated to America in 1792 and later served as an artillery officer under Andrew
Jackson.
Everina Wollstonecraft (1765-1841)
The daughter of Edward John Wollstonecraft and younger sister of Mary Wollstonecraft; she
was employed as a governess and schoolmistress.
