Letters to Mary - Episode 1

Series in which three writers send an informal letter to the influential British feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, 250 years after her birth, updating her on the progress of her often radical ideas. Professor Janet Todd, President of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge, addresses a letter to Mary about her her first book, a self-help manual called Thoughts on the Education of Daughters. Some readers argue that this work is no different from any other 18th century Conduct Book, with its rather modest ideas about how girls should live their lives, but Janet Todd believes that it shows real sparks that would flare up fully in her incendiary work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, four years later. She goes on to wonder how Mary might feel about the education and aspirations of girls today. Read by Sian Thomas.