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Trama e riassunto di Maria; ovvero, I torti della donna
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About 3 h 10 min to read.Inizia 90 giorni gratisA chi è rivolto
Readers who enjoy fierce heroines, gothic settings and bold ideas will love this novel of feeling, friendship and courage. It also appeals to those drawn to the early struggle for women's rights.
Che cos’è questo libro
What would you do if your husband had you locked in a madhouse to seize your money, and took your baby of four months from your arms?
Maria, or The Wrongs of Woman is a novel by Mary Wollstonecraft, left unfinished when she died in 1797. She wrote it after her famous argument for the rights of women, and she meant it to show in a story what that argument said in theory. It follows a gentlewoman, a servant and a washerwoman, and shows how law and custom press on each of them in a different way.
In questo riassunto
- 1A wife is locked away as madFree
- 2A jailer and a stranger reach out
- 3Darnford's story and a love begins
- 4Jemima's life shows how poverty crushes women
- 5Maria's own life, from romance to marriage
- 6A woman leaves, and the law pursues her
- 7The courtroom and the case against marriage law
- 8How the novel is told and what it asks
Punto chiave 1 di 8
A wife is locked away as mad
Maria sits in a corner of what she calls the house of despair. Her mind is overwhelmed by rage, grief and fear for her missing child. One thought rises above all others: her baby has been torn from her while she was nursing it.
Wollstonecraft opens with a quiet joke at the gothic novel. Other writers fill their castles with ghosts and monsters, she says, but those are made of dreams. The groans in this building are real. The horror here is made by people, not by spirits.
After two days Maria begins to think calmly. How can she get out, and how can she reach her daughter?
The woman who brings her dinner is Jemima, a guard who has been told that the lady's calm spells only make her more dangerous. Maria answers by eating, speaking gently and asking Jemima to watch her closely until she has to admit that her prisoner is sane.
A husband's accusation can wipe out a wife's word, and every protest she makes is read as a symptom.
When the law believes the husband, a woman's own voice counts for nothing.
That’s 1 of 8 key points.
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Go deeper: the whole of Maria; ovvero, I torti della donna
About 3 h 10 min to read.Inizia 90 giorni gratisPaperback, hardcover and large print, printed for you at cost, are on their way.Email me when it is printed
Who’s who
- Maria Venables
- A sensitive, clever wife, locked in a madhouse by her husband, who wants her freedom and her missing daughter.
- Jemima
- Maria's jailer, a hardened woman who survived abuse and poverty and who slowly comes to trust the prisoner she guards.
- Henry Darnford
- A passionate fellow prisoner, confined by a plot over his inheritance, who reads, writes to Maria and falls in love with her.
- George Venables
- Maria's husband, a merchant and gambler who wants her uncle's fortune and treats his wife as his property.
- Maria's uncle
- A kind, wounded man who taught Maria independence and who leaves his fortune to her and her daughter.
- Peggy
- A sailor's wife whom young Maria helps, a poor woman fighting to keep her children and her cottage.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 43,100 words
- Reading timeAbout 3 h
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary
- LanguagesEnglish and 13 other languages
Questions about Maria; ovvero, I torti della donna
What is Maria, or The Wrongs of Woman about?
It follows Maria, a wife locked in a private madhouse by her husband, who wants her fortune. She meets her guard Jemima and a fellow prisoner, Darnford, and her memoir shows how marriage law and poverty trap women.
Who is Jemima in the novel?
Jemima is the attendant who guards Maria. Born to a servant mother who died, she is abused as a child, forced into the streets and later hardened by her work. She slowly comes to respect Maria.
What is the main message of the book?
Wollstonecraft argues that the wrongs women suffer come from unequal laws and customs, especially marriage law that makes a wife her husband's property. She shows how those wrongs differ by class but stem from the same system.
Is Maria, or The Wrongs of Woman connected to A Vindication of the Rights of Woman?
Yes, it is the author's fictional companion to that essay. It shows in scenes of marriage, work and the courtroom what the earlier book argued in theory, and it carries the same call for women's education and independence.
Cite this edition
Wollstonecraft, Mary. Maria; Or, The Wrongs of Woman. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/maria-or-the-wrongs-of-woman.
Wollstonecraft, M. (2026). Maria; or, the wrongs of woman. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/maria-or-the-wrongs-of-woman (Original work published 1798)
Wollstonecraft, Mary. Maria; Or, The Wrongs of Woman. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/maria-or-the-wrongs-of-woman.
@book{wollstonecraft2026maria,
author = {Wollstonecraft, Mary},
title = {Maria; Or, The Wrongs of Woman},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/maria-or-the-wrongs-of-woman},
note = {First published 1798}
}
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