Also known as Fanny Godwin and Frances Wollstonecraft, she was the illegitimate daughter of the British feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and the American commercial speculator Gilbert Imlay. Fanny's mother wrote about her frequently in her later works, and Percy Bysshe Shelley composed a poem on her death. After her mother's death from childbirth in 1797, Fanny grew up in the household of Radical philosopher and step-father William Godwin, and her half-sister Mary, who later wrote "Frankenstein" and married Shelley, a leading Romantic poet. For a time, she lived with her aunts before returning the destitute household of Godwin. The Godwin and Shelley families have been the subject of intense academic and popular interest, which includes Fanny; although by the time of her suicide at the age of 22, she had not achieved anything of note.
Frances "Fanny" Imlay, Wollstonecraft's first child, was born in Le Havre on 14 May 1794, or, as the birth certificate stated, on the 25th day of Floreal in the Second Year of the Republic, and named after Fanny Blood, her mother's closest friend. Although Imlay never married Wollstonecraft, he registered her as his wife at the American consulate to protect her once Britain and France went to war in February of 1793. Most people, including Wollstonecraft's sisters, assumed they were married and thus, by extension, that Fanny was legitimate and she was registered as such in France. Whichever, her father abandoned her as an infant and her mother died when she was about two-and-half years old
She committed suicide.
Also known as Fanny Godwin and Frances Wollstonecraft, she was the illegitimate daughter of the British feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and the American commercial speculator Gilbert Imlay. Fanny's mother wrote about her frequently in her later works, and Percy Bysshe Shelley composed a poem on her death. After her mother's death from childbirth in 1797, Fanny grew up in the household of Radical philosopher and step-father William Godwin, and her half-sister Mary, who later wrote "Frankenstein" and married Shelley, a leading Romantic poet. For a time, she lived with her aunts before returning the destitute household of Godwin. The Godwin and Shelley families have been the subject of intense academic and popular interest, which includes Fanny; although by the time of her suicide at the age of 22, she had not achieved anything of note.
Frances "Fanny" Imlay, Wollstonecraft's first child, was born in Le Havre on 14 May 1794, or, as the birth certificate stated, on the 25th day of Floreal in the Second Year of the Republic, and named after Fanny Blood, her mother's closest friend. Although Imlay never married Wollstonecraft, he registered her as his wife at the American consulate to protect her once Britain and France went to war in February of 1793. Most people, including Wollstonecraft's sisters, assumed they were married and thus, by extension, that Fanny was legitimate and she was registered as such in France. Whichever, her father abandoned her as an infant and her mother died when she was about two-and-half years old
She committed suicide.
