Maria: or, The Wrongs of Woman

Maria: or, The Wrongs of Woman is an unfinished novel by Mary Wollstonecraft, published posthumously in 1798. Conceived as a companion to A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, it transforms philosophical argument into narrative, presenting a stark portrait of female oppression within marriage and the law.

The story follows a gentlewoman unjustly confined to a private madhouse by her husband. There she forms a life-sustaining bond with a working-class attendant and confides in a fellow prisoner, whose presence sparks the hope of freedom and self-determination. Interwoven backstories reveal how class, money, and patriarchal power conspire to trap women, whether born to privilege or poverty.

Wollstonecraft uses the heroine’s letters and testimonies to expose the legal and economic subjugation of wives, to defend women’s emotional and sexual autonomy, and to argue that personal virtue cannot flourish without civil liberty. The novel insists on female solidarity as a means of resistance, showing how shared experience becomes a source of moral clarity and courage.

Although incomplete, the work’s hybrid form creates a resonant mosaic that stands as a forceful indictment of institutional injustice. As early feminist fiction, it remains a bold call for reform of marriage, property, and custody laws, and a moving appeal for women’s full humanity.

"ABODES OF HORROR have frequently been described, and castles, filled with spectres and chimeras, conjured up by the magic spell of genius to harrow the soul, and absorb the wondering mind. But, formed of such stuff as dreams are made of, what were they to the mansion of despair, in one corner of which Maria sat, endeavouring to recall her scattered thoughts!"