Défense des droits des femmes, suivie de quelques considérations sur des sujets politiques et moraux. Ouvrage traduit de l'anglais de Mary Wollstonecraft et dédié à M. l'ancien évêque d'Autun
Authors of source text
Contributions
- Félicité Brissot de Warville
- translator
- François Buisson
- publisher
- Bruyset frères (Jean-Marie Bruyset)
- publisher
Related resources
- is translation of
- A vindication of the rights of woman, with strictures on political and moral subjects has translation
Notes
The translation is from the first (uncorrected) edition and includes Wollstonecraft's dedication to Talleyrand, hoping (in vain) to influence the legislation he was presenting to the National Assembly on women's education. Wollstonecraft's 'Vindication' also included substantial quotations from Rousseau's work in Ch.5 that were translated back into French.
Isabella Bour has identified Mme Brissot as the translator, although it was not mentioned, alongside her other two acknowledged translations, in a letter from François de Neufchateau, Interior Minister, to "la veuve Brissot" granting a 400f "secours littéraire" on 11 Pluviose, An 7 (30 Jan 1799) [Archives Nationales (Pierrefitte), F/17 1021(A)].
“The demonstration is carried out through a study of the works translated by them, together or singly, before 1792: the annotation of those earlier works is echoed by the themes of the notes in the later chapters of the 'Vindication'. These notes reflect Jacques-Pierre Brissot’s admiration for Quakers and British intellectual figures, such as Richard Price and Joseph Priestley (whom he knew), dislike of clergy and interest in education. Two long notes express the translator's frustration at being confined to the role of mother & housewife, and can be paralleled with statements in her [Mme Brissot's] correspondence”. Bour, "Who translated into French and annotated Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman?", in History of European Ideas (Jan 2021).
Alessa Johns notes that after her arrival in France, Wollstonecraft was invited – probably by Condorcet or Lanthenas, who were both members – to write an educational proposal for the Committee of Public Instruction. She was never called before the Committee, and it was ever drafted, it has now disappeared. See her letter to Ruth Barlow (Feb 1793), cited by Johns, "Translations", in Nancy E. Johnson & Paul Keen, eds., 'Mary Wollstonecraft in Context' (CUP, 2020).