The Compelling Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft to Gilbert Imlay - by Katie Merriam

Mary Wollstonecraft is perhaps the most distinctive and most prolific letter writer of the eighteenth century, but it is her letters to Gilbert Imlay that have attracted the most attention from readers (Todd ix). In part, these letters attract attention because they are so scandalous, especially for the time period in which they were written, but they mostly attract attention because readers find them extremely compelling. Wollstonecraft fashioned these letters with rhetoric that was intended to evoke the emotion of her particular audience, Imlay, as she tried to revive his love for her (Gordon 266). Readers of the letters after Imlay, though not the intended audience, still feel the evocative power of the letters as they play on their emotions. It is the rhetoric of the letters in particular that makes them so compelling to readers of all generations.

Wollstonecraft’s love letters to Imlay were born from a relationship that was made up of continuous separations, for Gilbert Imlay was a man of business and was constantly involved in some type of commercial enterprise (Gordon 207). Throughout Imlay’s long absences, Wollstonecraft wrote him a series of letters that were crafted in a variety of ways, but all share a common rhetorical style that was intended to draw in the reader. Though Imlay’s letters to Wollstonecraft have been either destroyed or lost, Wollstonecraft’s letters to him have been preserved in two different forms (Todd xiv).

The first major set of Wollstonecraft’s letters to Imlay is the actual letters that she wrote to him during their separations. Wollstonecraft’s original letters no longer exist, but they do exist in edited form. After Wollstonecraft’s death, her husband William Godwin read her letters to Imlay and found them so passionate and well written that he decide to publish them. He edited the letters, correcting punctuation, making them more coherent, and cutting out sections concerning business. After he edited and published the letters, Godwin burnt the original manuscripts, a common practice at that time (Todd xiv). The second major set of letters is Wollstonecraft’s Letters Written during a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark (1796)which she compiled after her attempted suicides upon discovering Imlay’s affairs. Wollstonecraft based this travel narrative on her actual letters to Imlay, but the journalistic letters of her narrative were divested of all personal and private details and were never actually meant to be sent to Imlay (Norman ix). Though Wollstonecraft’s Letters Written during a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark (1796) are valuable in their Romantic reverence for nature and their distinct style, they do not truly illustrate Wollstonecraft’s feelings for Imlay, nor were they written with the same compelling style used in her actual letters that is so evocative. Thus, this paper will rely predominately on Godwin’s edited versions of Wollstonecraft’s letters to Imlay to examine the rhetoric that makes them so compelling, since they are closest to the original letters in content and style. 

Readers from William Godwin - who remarked that Wollstonecraft’s letters were “ ‘calculated to make a man fall in love with the author’ ”- to Lyndall Gordon - who states that Wollstonecraft’s “heart beats through her pen” such that her “female vulnerability [is] bound to win readers of both sexes”- have realized the power of these letters (Gordon 217, 289-90). The letters have resonated both in the minds of Wollstonecraft’s contemporaries such as Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, Claire Claremont, and the Romantic poets and in the minds of modern scholars like Janet Todd. The letters have even been heralded as the “ ‘the finest examples of language and sentiment and passion ever presented to the world’ ” (Todd xxv). It is undeniable that generations of readers have been affected by the evocative power of Wollstonecraft’s love letters, but what has never been investigated is why these letters evoke such strong emotions from readers. This paper will selectively contrast Wollstonecraft’s letters to Godwin with her letters to Imlay to demonstrate that the rhetoric used in her Imlay letters is in fact unique to these letters alone. This paper argues that it is this distinct rhetoric that makes Wollstonecraft’s letters to Imlay so emotionally compelling to readers.

Understanding why Wollstonecraft’s love letters are so compelling is as important for future scholarship as it was for Wollstonecraft’s own contemporaries. For past, present, and future readers, the letters illustrate how to effectively express love, or any other emotion, through correspondence. Even beyond expressing love and emotion through rhetoric, the letters teach the reader the true meaning of love because they so vividly and effectively express Wollstonecraft’s passionate love for Imlay. Just as Wollstonecraft reimagined what love could and should be in her letters to Imlay, we, as readers of her letters, learn how to craft, through language and rhetoric, fresh perspectives on what love could and should mean for us as modern individuals carrying out her philosophical ideals in our time.

From her very first letter to Imlay, Wollstonecraft draws the reader into and beyond the letters themselves with her stylistic methods and usage of language. She employs the use of numerous rhetorical devices such as affectionate diction, sexual insinuations, and domestic imagery to appeal to Imlay, but at the same time, she “invites every reader into the scandalously intimate proximity” of her relationship with him (Conger 51). This gives readers a sense of being part of Wollstonecraft’s personal relationship with Imlay, increasing the sense of scandal when reading the private letters. The rhetorical strategy of including intimate details in the letters serves to make them both scandalous and compelling to all readers.

            Wollstonecraft first draws the readers into her relationship with Imlay with the affectionate diction she uses to begin and end her letters and to address Imlay throughout them.

Often Wollstonecraft does not begin her letters with an address, but when she does, she uses

phrases like “my dear love” (Letter 1), “my best love” (Letter 8), and “my kind love” (Letter 13).

She also uses direct address in her letters, but she rarely uses just the name Imlay to invoke her lover, instead she refers to him using personal and affectionate names like “my dearest” (Letter 13) and she refers to herself as “your own dear girl” (Letter 2). The conclusions of her letters, such as “yours truly” (Letter 1), “yours affectionately” (Letter 3), and “yours sincerely” (Letter 6), also draw the reader into the personal relationship of Wollstonecraft and Imlay. Wollstonecraft frequently interjects into her letters the expression “God bless you” which she defines as a kiss in her second letter.

While Wollstonecraft does use some of these same affectionate phrases in her letters to Godwin, the occurrence of such phrases is far less frequent and the phrases themselves have very different purposes in her letters to her husband than to her lover. Whereas Wollstonecraft constantly uses personal names to address Imlay such as “my dearest”, she frequently refers to Godwin as simply “William” (Godwin and Mary). She often does not even begin her letters to Godwin with any type of address, and though she does use some of the same phrases to close her letters to Godwin that she uses in her letters to Imlay such as “your sincerely” or “yours truly”, she oftentimes closes her Godwin letters with only her name or completely unsigned. Wollstonecraft also uses the phrase “God bless you” both in her letters to Imlay and to Godwin, but she does so only rarely in her Godwin letters and instead uses “Adieu”. Overall, Wollstonecraft has two different purposes in crafting her letters to Godwin and Imlay, and her use of affectionate diction illustrates these different purposes. She must address and close her letters to Imlay poignantly because letters were their only type of communication since they were constantly separated, and she had to make her letters powerful to keep him interested in her. She did not have to do so in her letters to Godwin since letters were not their only type of communication because she saw him frequently. Wollstonecraft uses affectionate diction far more frequently in her Imlay letters because she must convince Imlay and herself of their great love for each other. In her letters to Godwin, she does not need to convince herself or him of their love because they both know that they are in love, so her affectionate diction is mainly used for flirtation and humor.

            Readers of the letters are also greatly compelled by the intimate details pertaining to the sexual relationship of Wollstonecraft and Imlay included in the letters. Wollstonecraft writes “I hope to tell you soon (on your lips) how glad I shall be to see you” (Letter 16). She also uses a sexual insinuation when she writes that Fanny “wants[s Imlay] to thank her mother…as only [he] can” (Letter 29). Wollstonecraft uses such intimate details to remind Imlay of their sexual relationship and their bond as lovers, but she does so in such a coy way that she entices all readers with her flirtation. Because these sexual references are so personal, the reader is compelled by the scandal of being drawn deeply into the relationship of the correspondents (Ty 70).

Wollstonecraft makes use of domestic imagery in her letters in hopes of convincing

Imlay to return to his own home. She references Imlay’s “slippers” (Letter 7) as a reminder of their domestic life. She also draws on the image of the “fireside” to create a domestic scene that can only occur once Imlay returns home (Letter 13). Wollstonecraft tells Imlay of the daily activities that she wishes they could do together such as reading (Letter 9) and taking morning walks (Letter 13), and she even describes her hopes of “retir[ing] to a farm” in the future (Letter 32). Wollstonecraft uses this imagery of domesticity to create for Imlay a portrait of his life at home, so that he will be compelled to return to it. This domestic imagery is compelling even for other readers of the letters because it symbolizes a universal model of idyllic home life that each reader can envision. This type of imagery is also very compelling and personal because it brings the reader beyond the literary content of the letter and into the correspondents’ life together outside the realm of the letter (Conger 44-45).

The most important and most frequently used domestic image, however, is that of Fanny Imlay as a vivacious and happy young girl. Wollstonecraft’s repeated references to Fanny are meant to waken Imlay’s feelings of paternal attachment to his daughter and his instinct to care for her (Todd 332). Wollstonecraft often mentions events in the development of their daughter that Imlay must miss because he is constantly gone. Wollstonecraft relates Fanny’s activities to him from her first “gentle twitches” (Letter 5) to the recovery from illness of their “little Hercules” (Letter 23) to her playing in the garden with other children (Letter 56). Wollstonecraft also implores him to come home as Fanny “is calling papa” (Letter 44) and to see how she “certainly looks very like” him (Letter 22). Though Wollstonecraft similarly references her daughter in her letters to Godwin, these references are much less compelling than in her letters to Imlay, for Imlay is Fanny’s father, and it is this biological tie that is truly significant. Though her epistolary rhetoric of references to young Fanny may not have compelled Imlay, they certainly compel other readers of the letters because they illustrate the deep affection and attachment that Wollstonecraft feels for her daughter. This again symbolizes for all readers a universal image of parental affection that is evocative of strong emotion.

Wollstonecraft also uses a rhetorical strategy of tension within the letters as a whole to contribute to their evocative power. To some readers, the letters are so compelling because of the sense of the author’s vulnerability (Todd ix). Others find the transition of the author from a state of utter dependence on her lover to a state of independence to be compelling. Indeed Wollstonecraft employs both her own vulnerability and her independence to evoke the emotion of her audience, Imlay, but in reality, it is the tension between her vulnerability and independence that makes the letters so compelling (Todd xv). This tension draws the reader into Wollstonecraft’s internal struggle to both express her affections for her lover but also to regulate these affections at the same time (Ty 73).

Wollstonecraft uses her vulnerability in her early letters to appeal to Imlay’s pity and instinct to protect his lover in hopes that he might return to her. Wollstonecraft illustrates her vulnerability in her letters through various modes. Throughout the progression of her letters, she frequently portrays herself as vulnerable by referencing her illness of “continual coughing” and “violent fits of trembling” (Letter 32, 45), her serious fall on the rocks in Sweden (Letter 52), the emotional weakness to which Imlay has subjected her (Letter 35), and her frequent tears (Letter 6, 11, 21, 38, 55, 74, 75). She also exaggerates her vulnerability by subjecting herself and Imlay to the standard gender types when she subscribes to the female chore of “mend[ing her] stockings” while Imlay “struggles to be manly” (Todd 363, Letter 9). She depicts herself also using the imagery of a “parasite plant…[with] tendrils to cling to the elm by which [she] wish[es] to be supported” (Letter 41), likening her dependence on Imlay to a plant that clings to a tree for life. Finally, Wollstonecraft illustrates her vulnerability with her allusion to Rousseau’s ‘Solitary Walker’ who, like her, “has no home…[and is] strangely cast-off” (Todd 363, Letter 65). Wollstonecraft’s depiction of herself as vulnerable is compelling not only because it contributes to the overall tension of the letters, but also because it evokes the emotion of pity from the reader (Conger 49). 

In her later letters, Wollstonecraft uses her independence to attract Imlay back to her using a strategy that reflects a modern approach to winning lovers back: she attempts to show him that she does not need him as a way of enticing him. She does this by alluding to other men that she could love such as “the shade of Mirabeau” (Letter 3) and  J.J. Rousseau with whom she has “always been half in love” (Letter 22), and she hints that she might take Fanny and “live without [Imlay’s] assistance” if he does not come home soon (Letter 31). Though these are empty threats, they still reveal that Wollstonecraft has the potential to be independent of Imlay. She also asserts her independence using images of flight and ascension to demonstrate that she can rise above her dependence on him (Ty 75). She tells Imlay that she has “endeavored to fly from [her]self” (Letter 57) and that she has greatly benefited from rock climbing in Sweden (Letter 56). Both these images of flying and climbing depict her as an independent woman beyond the constraints of her lover. She also displays her independence as she refuses Imlay’s pecuniary offerings (Letter 70) and resolves to find work to support herself and Fanny (Letter 37). Wollstonecraft’s final letter to Imlay illustrates her true independence, for she determines that the letter will be “an eternal farewell”, and she concludes the letter with “I part with you in peace” (Letter 77). Just as the image of Wollstonecraft as vulnerable is compelling to readers, so too is the image of her as independent compelling, because she overcomes the barriers of dependence on Imlay to find new happiness in her own life.

            Another rhetorical strategy Wollstonecraft uses in her letters to Imlay is changing mood. Overall, Wollstonecraft gains composure throughout the course of her letters, but the progression toward this composure is not a steady one (Todd 346). Wollstonecraft’s moods frequently vary, and her letters change in mood from one to the next. In one letter she is happy and flirty, while she is melancholy and dejected in the very next one. There is also a great “ebb and flow of intensity” throughout the course of the letters which also illustrates her changing moods (Todd 346). Wollstonecraft’s employs changing moods to illustrate her different emotions throughout her correspondence with Imlay. We, as modern readers, find this rhetorical strategy compelling because we pity Wollstonecraft’s confusion, and we can sympathize with her because we understand changing human emotions.

Wollstonecraft first illustrates her changing mood with her varied sentence length. The lengths of her sentences often correlate with Wollstonecraft’s mood, and because her sentence lengths vary throughout her correspondence, they are clear indications of changing mood. Wollstonecraft often uses short sentences when she describes her daily activities and business dealings and when she is very composed. Thus she uses short sentences when her feelings are simple and she understands how to express them. For instance, she uses a series of short sentence like “I was hurried on board yesterday about three o’clock, the wind having changed” (Letter 48) to describe her daily events. She also uses short sentences like “but we who are governed by other motives, ought not be led on by him” in discussing business dealings with Imlay (Letter 29). Finally, she uses a series of short sentences like “I am glad you are satisfied with your own conduct” in her last letter which illustrates her composure despite Imlay’s horrible treatment of her (Letter 78). Her daily activities, business dealings, and displays of composure have little emotion and thus are illustrated by short sentences.

On the other hand, Wollstonecraft uses long sentences when she describes complex emotions that she cannot easily express. She uses series of long sentences at the beginning of her correspondence with Imlay to try to express her deep love for him. She does not know how to express such a great emotion, so she uses a series of long sentences like “I have not left the hue of love out of the picture-the rosy glow; and fancy has spread over my cheeks, I believe, for I feel them burning, whilst as delicious tear trembles in my eye, they would be all your own, if a grateful emotion directed to the Father, who has made me alive to happiness…” (Letter 6). Wollstonecraft must use long, complex sentences to express her love for Imlay because it is such a complex emotion. Wollstonecraft also uses long, complex sentences in her later letters to express her confusion about her relationship with Imlay. She uses long sentences like “still I do not think it false delicacy, or foolish pride, to wish your attention to my happiness should arise as much from love, which is always rather a selfish passion, as a reason-that is, I want you to promote my felicity by seeking your own” (Letter 21) in an attempt to understand why Imlay refuses to return home. Thus long sentences are used by Wollstonecraft to indicate an inability to express emotion. Through her use of varied short and long sentences in her correspondence with Imlay, Wollstonecraft illustrates her changing moods.

The lengths of the sentences in Wollstonecraft’s letters to Godwin do not express changing mood in the same way that they do in her letters to Imlay. In most of her letters to Godwin, Wollstonecraft uses short sentences like “I supped in the company of M. Siddons last night” and “If you are not reading the Elegant Enthusiast send it by Mary, and I shall soon return it” (Letter 227, 249), because she mostly writes Godwin notes about her daily activities. Because Wollstonecraft neither feels complex emotions nor an inability to express herself with Godwin, she uses shorter sentence in most of her letters to him. Thus because there is little varied sentence length in her Godwin letters as compared to her Imlay letters, her letters to Godwin do not truly illustrate her changing moods. 

Wollstonecraft’s use of punctuations is also an indication of her changing moods. According to Ralph Wardle, Wollstonecraft’s haphazard use of punctuation and “reckless use of the dash” are an “index to her state of mind” (Wardle vii). Thus her use of frequent dashes and disorganized punctuation indicates her confusion and inability to express herself in her letters. In one letter to Imlay, Wollstonecraft begins by telling him that she “labour[s] in vain to calm [her] mind”, and then she goes on to explain using frequent dashes and haphazard punctuation that she cannot live without him. She then continues by explaining that her “heart is so oppressed, [she] cannot write with precision” (Letter 54). Thus, it is clear that Wollstonecraft uses haphazard punctuation and dashes when she cannot express her emotions clearly. Later, Wollstonecraft says “I scarcely know who I am, or what to do,- The grief I cannot conquer…I labour to conceal in total solitude.- My life therefore is but an exercise of fortitude-continually on the stretch” (Letter 75), and her use of the dash in this passage clearly illustrates her turbulent state of mind. Because Wollstonecraft uses haphazard punctuation and dashes sporadically throughout her letters, they demonstrate when her mood has changed to one of confusion or dishevelment.

Though she does use frequent dashes in her letters to Godwin, Wollstonecraft uses them more as a simple type of punctuation than as an indication of a dishevelment and confusion, and thus they also do not illustrate her changing moods. In one of her letters to Godwin, she uses many dashes, but they are used to link sentences such as “Send me one line”, “I am in humour to write”, and “I shall come to you tonight, probably, before nine” where a period should be used (Letter 360). Thus in her letters to Godwin, dashes are used merely as punctuation, while they are used in her letters to Imlay to express a confused and tumultuous state of mind that indicate changing mood.

Wollstonecraft uses exclamations in her letters to Imlay to express three different emotions: flirtatiousness, anger, and utter despair. These exclamations draw readers beyond the letter itself into Wollstonecraft’s inner thoughts and feelings because the exclamations seem to be her own personal thoughts rather than simple words on paper. Exclamations also serve to

emphasize Wollstonecraft’s mood because through them, she shows, rather than explains, how

she feels to the reader.

            At the beginning of her correspondence with Imlay, Wollstonecraft uses exclamation in a flirtatious way. She uses exclamations such as “pray sir” (Letter 7), “don’t smile!” (Letter 5), and “Crack! Crack!” (Letter 4) to tease Imlay with light humor and jocularity. However, in her later letters, Wollstonecraft’s exclamations go from indicating flirtation to indicating her anger with Imlay. She uses exclamations such as “Do no violence to yourself!” (Letter 67), “My die is cast!” (Letter 68), and “Beware of the deception of passion!” (Letter 67) to emphasize the anger she feels toward Imlay for abandoning and betraying her. She also uses exclamations invoking God to express her utter despair and hopelessness. She often exclaims things like “My God!” (Letter 57), “Give me, gracious heaven!” (Letter 50), and “For God’s sake!” (Letter 77) which demonstrate that she is utterly hopeless. Because exclamations function as expressions of three different emotions, they illustrate Wollstonecraft’s changing mood in the letters.

Wollstonecraft uses the rhetorical strategy of changing mood throughout her correspondence with Imlay that is illustrated by her varied sentence length, her haphazard punctuation and use of the dash, and her exclamations. Her changing moods were meant to evoke Imlay’s pity for the confused mental state of his lover. Readers of all generations have found this rhetorical strategy compelling because all people can understand and sympathize with the changing human emotions to which Wollstonecraft is subject.

Mary Wollstonecraft was not ignorant to techniques of rhetorical style. While she was serving as a governess for the Kingsborough family in Ireland, she discovered Hugh Blair’s Letters on Rhetoric (Todd xi). Though she did value the work for its literary merit, interestingly, she often did not use what she learned from the book in her own composition of letters. According to Blair, one should use the Augustan idea of correspondence in letter writing, and thus letters should be crafted in the fashion of good conversation. Letters should be “sprightly, witty, seemingly natural, and entertaining to the recipient” (Todd xi, Blair). Though Wollstonecraft read this advice and considered it valuable, she rarely abided by it in her letters, for she was seldom concerned with the effect of her letters on the recipient. Unlike other female letter writers of her day, Wollstonecraft was not a leisured letter writer, for she often had a distinct purpose for writing a letter: to express her emotions to the reader (Todd xii-xiii). Wollstonecraft’s rhetorical strategy of changing moods and her constant haranguing of Imlay for not writing to her clearly illustrate that she was mainly concerned with expressing her feelings rather than tailoring her letters for the entertainment of her correspondent. Often, her homiletic style and her habit of describing her moods in immense detail are viewed as self absorbed and melodramatic, but in reality, these are really just characteristics of her impassioned letters (Todd xxix).

            Though Wollstonecraft’s letters were not written in the style presented by Letters on Rhetoric, they are still very influential to readers, and a number of her own Romantic contemporaries were greatly compelled by the letters. William Godwin was one such contemporary influenced by Wollstonecraft’s love letters. Before reading the letters, Godwin had disliked Wollstonecraft because of a bad impression he got after their first meeting at a dinner party, but after reading the letters, he saw her in a new light. He even commented that the letters were “calculated to make a man fall in love with the author” (Gordon 289-290). The letters must have indeed had this effect on Godwin because he soon fell deeply in love with Wollstonecraft and they got married soon after.

Another contemporary compelled by the love letters of Wollstonecraft to Imlay was Wollstonecraft’s own daughter Mary Shelley. Shelley, from her youth, constantly held her mother as a model of what she strove to be. She began reading books in her father’s study when she was a young girl, and amongst her readings were her mother’s letters to Imlay (Bennett 16). She came to recognize, through these letters, her mother’s “greatness of soul” (Gordon 428). There are even traces of her mother’s influence in Mary Shelley’s writing, for Shelley’s writing, like Wollstonecraft’s, has “a beating pulse…[and] a similar playfulness and candor” (Gordon 428). Shelley even model her History of a Six Weeks’ Tour (1817) after Wollstonecraft’s Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark (1796) which she and her husband read out loud during their travels in Europe (Gordon 421).

Mary Shelley’s husband, Percy Shelley, was another of Wollstonecraft’s Romantic contemporaries influenced by her love letters to Imlay. After reading these letters, Percy became so enamored with Wollstonecraft that he sought to marry one of her daughters. Eventually he did court Mary, and they consecrated their love on Wollstonecraft’s grave (Gordon 419-420). Percy saw Mary as Wollstonecraft and Godwin’s “child of love and light” (Bennett 17). Clearly, Wollstonecraft’s letters to Imlay were so compelling to Percy Shelley that he became enthralled with her and even attempted to see her in her daughter Mary.

Godwin’s stepdaughter Claire Claremont was also greatly influenced by Wollstonecraft’s compelling letters. She modeled herself after Wollstonecraft and the idea of free love that Claremont believed her to espouse in her love letters. In reality, Wollstonecraft was not a proponent of free love, this was a misconception on Claremont’s part, but nevertheless, she did attempt to model herself after Wollstonecraft’s sexual freedom, belief in nature, and rash passion (Gordon 420). Claremont herself had an affair and illegitimate child with Lord Byron similar to Wollstonecraft’s affair and child with Imlay (Gittings). It is also through Wollstonecraft’s letters to Imlay that Claremont found the strength to remake herself in Russia when her romance with

Lord Byron went awry, just as Wollstonecraft had done after her relationship with Imlay did not

work out (Gordon 435-436).

The letters of Mary Wollstonecraft to Gilbert Imlay are significant to modern readers in a number of ways. Wollstonecraft’s letters undoubtedly have value for readers of all generations because of their compelling use of rhetoric. Though we, as modern readers, seldom write the type of long and frequent letters that Wollstonecraft used as means of correspondence, we do use other methods of correspondence such as email, text messages, IM, and phone conversations. In all of these modes of conversation, rhetoric and style are important to convey what we want to express. We can learn, through Wollstonecraft’s rhetoric in her love letters, how to effectively express love or any other emotion. Thus, Wollstonecraft’s compelling rhetoric can be used as a model for our own modern means of correspondence. Wollstonecraft’s love letters also illustrate the meaning of true love because we see Wollstonecraft’s passionate love for Imlay expressed through her letters, and we can come to sympathize with and even understand the emotions that she felt for her lover. Thus, these love letters are truly timeless, and their use of compelling rhetoric should be used as a model and an inspiration for readers of all generations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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