Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark

<p>In June 1795, <a href="https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/mary-wollstonecraft">Mary Wollstonecraft</a> embarked on a three-month trip around Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, on undisclosed business at the request of her lover Gilbert Imlay. During the course of this voyage she wrote twenty-five letters to him, which were compiled the following year at the behest of her publisher into this volume. As a travelogue, the letters of course contain descriptions of the natural beauty of the places she visited and the habits and interests of the people she met; but what is more apparent is Mary’s growing realization that this journey she has undertaken for Imlay ultimately won’t heal their relationship.</p> <p><i>Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark</i> was the last work of Mary Wollstonecraft’s published during her lifetime; she died two years later, shortly after the birth of her second child, <a href="https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/mary-shelley">Mary Shelley</a>. It follows the themes of her earlier works: a belief in reason’s ability to elevate people, the injustice of society’s oppression of women, and a spreading idea that commercialism does more to deprave than to enlighten humankind.</p>