Guardian Review of Brekke's publication

And this is the Observer's review of Brekke's previously mentioned book http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jun/14/mary-wollstonecraft-letters-classics-corner):

Classics corner: Letters Written in Sweden, Norway and Denmark

Katie Toms
The Observer, Sunday 14 June 2009

"If ever there was a book calculated to make a man in love with its author, this appears to me to be the book," remarked Mary Wollstonecraft's husband, William Godwin, of these letters, written in 1795. It is not her best-known work but it certainly shows why Godwin was smitten. Travelling with just her baby daughter and a nursemaid as company, Wollstonecraft cuts a dashing figure on a mission to recover a stolen boat of silver and proves herself an acute observer and knowledgeable guide.

Letters Written in Sweden, Norway and Denmark
by Mary Wollstonecraft
Edited by Tone Brekke and Jon Mee
Oxford World's Classics, £8.99


She was, however, primarily a woman of ideas and she used these letters to extend her defence of the French Revolution, outline her radical stance on women's rights, crime (caused by wealth, not poverty), capital punishment (ineffective and excessive) and commerce (evil). She is particularly perturbed to discover Swedish female servants living lives of brutal drudgery in near slavery.

Though written for publication (her private letters to Imlay, included in this edition as an appendix are quite different), this collection brings to life the radical writer of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, proving she was a strident, independent force in deeds as well as words. One can only imagine the spectacle she caused travelling alone in the late 18th century.

The scope and insight Wollstonecraft brings to these letters serve only to make one more sorrowful that her remarkable life was cut short so soon. This edition forms a fitting tribute to the pioneering feminist on the 250th anniversary of her birth.