Biographical Directory
for Wollstonecraft’s
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
MADELINE CRONIN
Augustus. See Octavian.
Bacon, Francis (1561–1626). English philosopher, essayist, and statesman.
He became Lord Chancellor under James I and is recognized for his
major contributions to natural philosophy and scientifi c methodology
as well as political theory. He vociferously rejected a priori reasoning
in favor of induction in Novum Organum (1620). In A Vindication of
the Rights of Woman Wollstonecraft uses a more obscure passage from
Bacon in which he suggests men of genius are more able to make great
contributions to civilization if they are childless; Wollstonecraft consid-
ers the extension of this observation to women.
Barbauld, Anna Laetitia (1743 –1825). Prominent female British author
in her day (she was included among the female worthies listed in Mary
Scott’s poem “The Female Advocate”). Barbauld was educated fi rst at
home under the tutelage of her father, a schoolmaster well known in
liberal intellectual circles. She then attended the Warrington Dissenting
Academy and went on to publish works such as Poems and — in col-
laboration with her brother John Aikin —Miscellaneous Pieces in Prose
(1773). In her later career she wrote increasingly political works such as
Address to the Opposers of the Repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts
(1790) and pamphlets on democracy, popular education, and the rights
of women. Due to her literary accomplishments and because she had re-
ceived an extensive education among men, she was invited by Elizabeth
Montagu to open a Literary Academy for Ladies. However, Barbauld
declined on the grounds of her conviction that conversation with men