SOURCE: Pollin, Burton R. “Mary Hays on Women's Rights in the Monthly Magazine.” Etudes Anglaises 24, no. 3 (July-September 1971): 271-82.

In the following essay, Pollin examines Hays's contributions to the late eighteenth-century reform movement in the form of letters and essays she produced for the Monthly Magazine.

While sifting the earliest issues of the Monthly Magazine for references to William Godwin, I was struck by the frequent mention of his name in the letters to the editor, from February 1796 through September 1797, chiefly on the subject of women's rights and education¹. The series included several signed “M. H.” and terminated with one signed by Godwin's friend, Mary Hays. Two of the very few studies of this ardent and curious suffragette, I discovered, mentioned her contributing to a “controversy on Helvétius” under these initials, but failed to examine or even identify the printed articles². They obviously relied for their information upon...