Gary Kelly's 22- page introduction, titled “Gender, Class and Cultural Revolution,” is brilliant. However, it in no way lets Wollstonecraft take center stage, even though the book is supposed to be about her. Although the subsequent chapters do focus on her works and a little on her life, she seems supplementary and only marginally convenient for his Marxist theory on the “Cultural Revolution,” which was led, he argues, by the professionals in the middle classes bent on changing the behavior and perspectives of the classes above and below them. By “Cultural Revolution,” he means the reaction of British intellectuals to the French Revolution and their political theories to divert a physical revolution in Britain through bringing about social reform. These ideas, to Kelly, “founded the modern state of Britain.” Debate through writing instigated reform, and it included Wollstonecraft's “revolutionary feminism.” However, if Wollstonecraft had been interviewed by Kelly, based upon his questions to her, she might have said, “Do I need to be here?” Kelly's theory is what is important. He describes Wollstonecraft's mind and career only as they fit into his theory.

In her review of Kelly's book, Barbara Kanner conveys similar concerns and adds that it is “not an innovative historical biography” but is only a synthesis of “literary and feminist scholarship produced over the past two decades,” and which borrows from Wollstonecraft scholars Mitzi Myers, Janet Todd, Cora Kaplan, Mary Poovey and Moira Ferguson (229). This criticism is severe, for surely Kelly does more than that. On the other hand, he barely gives a nod to any Wollstonecraft scholarship other than Mitzi Myers. One footnote lists all of the biographers to date (233n1), but other than Godwin, he rarely cites them. Nevertheless, Kanner praises Kelly for “his rendering of Wollstonecraft as a historical figure” (229). However, Kanner describes his work as “weav[ing] together her life experiences and her literary productions within the socioeconomic and cultural contexts of the time” (229). I do not find many “life experiences” in Kelly's work; Wollstonecraft's life is peripheral.