"[A] unique double biography... An excellent and poignant book whose heroines breathe in its pages. " (David Aaronovitch The Times)
"A mother and daughter who changed not only the way we think, but the way we are… extraordinary women, a dozen decades ahead of their time… Romantic Outlaws enables readers to compare the different ways in which these two remarkable women confronted their tragically different destinies… [A] thoughtful, intelligent, deeply-felt book’" (Miranda Seymour Sunday Times)
"A gripping account of the heartbreaks and triumphs of two of history's most formidable female intellectuals, Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley. Gordon has reunited mother and daughter through biography, beautifully weaving their narratives for the first time." (Amanda Foreman author of A World on Fire)
"Full of enriching paradox… Charlotte Gordon has managed to produce that rare thing, a work of genuinely popular history... It works beautifully." (Melissa Benn New Statesman)
"Wollstonecraft and Shelley were extraordinary women who led sensational lives. They were Romantic revolutionaries… retelling their story cannot fail to captivate and provoke." (Spectator)
Inventive, page-turning, involving biography at its best.
Romantic Outlaws is the first book to tell the story of the passionate and pioneering lives of Mary Wollstonecraft – English feminist and author of the landmark book, The Vindication of the Rights of Women – and her novelist daughter Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein.