Laura Kirkley – författare

Thomas Holcroft’s 1786 translation of Isabelle de Montolieu’s novel is a textual encounter between a rather conventional Swiss woman and a British radical. Just as Montolieu did in her own translations, Holcroft reworked parts of the novel to make it more appealing to his intended audience.

Considering her transformation of material from the works of European writers and orators such as Rousseau, Mirabeau, 'Stephanie-Felicite de Genlis, Christian Gotthilf Salzmann and Margareta de Cambon, as well as British sentimental philosophers and the radical theologian Richard Price, this book argues that Wollstonecraft espouses a cosmopolitan ethic that subordinates local and national allegiances to philanthropy, or love of humankind. At a time of international conflict, burgeoning capitalism and colonial enterprise, she represents philanthropy and cultural authenticity as the means to resist tyranny and imperialism in all their forms and light the way to global justice.

Considering her transformation of material from the works of European writers and orators such as Rousseau, Mirabeau, Felicite de Genlis, Christian Gotthilf Salzmann and Margareta de Cambon, as well as British sentimental philosophers and the radical theologian Richard Price, this book argues that Wollstonecraft espouses a cosmopolitan ethic that subordinates local and national allegiances to philanthropy, or love of humankind. At a time of international conflict, burgeoning capitalism and colonial enterprise, she represents philanthropy and cultural authenticity as the means to resist tyranny and imperialism in all their forms and light the way to global justice.