Reviews

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

savana_l_ford's review against another edition

informative inspiring reflective relaxing slow-paced

4.25

amymarchlawrence's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective slow-paced

3.75

moothemonster's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

3.0

as somebody obsessed with this era of philosophy and with this specific philosopher, this book was a really cool insight into her life. i read the oxford world's classics edition and the context in the introduction coupled with the letters between her and Imlay included at the end really made it- the text itself i found myself only really enjoying with this context. the descriptions are beautiful and you can tell the author is incredibly smart, but she is also, i think, unduly mean to a lot of the people who she comes across, unduly comparing them to the 'polite' social life in england and girl she did NOT need to be so mean.

basically, i think this text is really good if youre interested in wollstonecraft and her contemporaries etc, if you arent, i think it could feel like a bitter slog

maalinmariaa's review against another edition

adventurous informative reflective medium-paced

vpaparic's review against another edition

medium-paced

2.0

Beautiful descriptions of landscape but Wollstonecraft is so judgemental and British-centred we barely get to know anythimg about the actual places she visited. She finds everything disgusting and everyone lazy and "unable to speak English" (???). When she sees a woman she mainly tells you whether she is pretty or not, fat or thin, and whether she seems "chaste". Meanwhile she is also always complaining that most women are so superficial but not her.

ipanzica's review against another edition

4.0

This is a fascinating collection of letters written about our female author's experiences in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark at the time. While the letters were short they were all interesting to read in order to hear more of the author's commentary about each country's culture and her comparisons of these cultures. Usually, we only see men write about culture and travel from this point in history so it is also refreshing to see the woman's perspective on the topic. Though her opinion is more favorable towards Sweden than Norway, so just be prepared for that if you would get annoyed by this.

Also, she was really nice even while she was bringing up the negative parts of a culture. For example while talking about the Norwegian people she wrote "The Norwegians appear to be a sensible, shrewd people, with little scientific knowledge, and still less taste for literature; but they are arriving at the epoch which precedes the introduction of the arts and sciences." This is the most optimistic and kind negative critic I ever heard in a book exploring different cultures written during this time. At least two of her male counterpoints (Roy Chapman Andrews and D. H. Lawrence) at the time were straight-up insulting and making death threats about the people they met in their books. So while the bar was low for her she still did a great job and earned every star I gave her.

Overall it was an interesting book to read and I recommend it to people who want to feel like they are traveling and learn new things while reading.

myceliumm's review against another edition

challenging reflective slow-paced

3.5

goodverbsonly's review against another edition

3.0

Read for Frankenstein's Forbearers!!!
Long and dramatic descriptions of scenery and the people from the North.

In the back are the personal letters she was writing at the time to The Worst Man Ever and I read two of them and I got very sad. Very sad.

cheriebooksreadthisyear's review against another edition

I read the first five letters in 'A Short Residence in Sweden' and then the whole of 'Memoirs...'

marisamoo's review against another edition

4.0

<3 depressed little bitch