• Name: Wollstonecraft, Mary (Godwin)
• Gender: Female
• Birth Date: 27  April  1759
• Death Date: 10  September  1797
• Occupation: author
• Occupation: advocate of women's rights

Godwin refers to Wollstonecraft as either 'Wolstencraft' or 'Wt', using a form of his personal shorthand developed throughout the diary. However, when referring to their sexual relationship, she is referred to as 'elle' (For a complete account of Godwin and Wollstonecraft’s sexual relationship, and Godwin’s codes of dashes, dots, and indications in French see St. Clair, pp. 497–503). Using foreign words, generally in Latin or French, was Godwin’s general practice when referring to sensitive or discrete matters. Other examples of this, with reference to Wollstonecraft, are three mentions of 'fievre' and 'frieze', probably indicating matters of health, and 'humour' and 'bonne' which have been interpreted by St Clair as references to Wollstonecraft’s recurring bouts of depression. ( IThere are four diary entries for Imlay, although these in fact refer to Wollstonecraft. See the discussion in the biographical note on Imlay).

The examples of 'chez elle', indicating an excursion to Wollstonecraft’s home, and also 'chez moi' are easily certifiable through cross-referencing surviving correspondences. Curiously, however, there are three mentions of 'chez elle' in entries that follow the premature death of Wollstonecraft in 1797 that occur on 25 June 1798, 26 June 1798, and 9 July 1798. At the time of these entries, Godwin was conducting research for his volume on the life of Wollstonecraft, Memoirs of the Author of the Vindication of the Rights of Women. Godwin and Wollstonecraft maintained separate residences, even after their marriage: *Wollstonecraft moved into Godwin's house in the Polygon in Somers Town, London, while he—respecting their mutual desire to combine conjugal intimacy with continued independence—rented a study nearby for use during the day. (DNB) Various letters were exchanged during the first months after their marriage, including requests for books. Wollstonecraft also announced her visits to Godwin’s household: 'I shall probably knock at your door in my way to Opie's'. (to Godwin, from Mary Wollstonecraft (London, 20 April 1797) – in Collected Letters, p. 410). Godwin himself states in Memoirs: It is perhaps scarcely necessary to mention, that, influenced by the ideas I had long entertained upon the subject of cohabitation, I engaged an apartment, about twenty doors from our house in the Polygon, Somers Town, which I designed for the purpose of my study and literary occupations. (Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman. p. 173). Locke states in his biography of Godwin: Godwin moved his own rooms further up Chalton Street, to No. 17 in the Evesham buildings, while Mary went with Fanny to Clarendon Square right at the top of the road where a set of thirty-two paired houses, four stories high and linked by wedge-shaped wings, formed an enclosed shape, gardens in the middle, of sixteen sides…it was known as the 'Polygon'….it stood on the very edge of town, separated from the villages of Camden town and Chalk Farm by market gardens and open fields. This rural setting would be Godwin’s base for the next ten years…his practice was to leave the Polygon immediately on rising, to work in the Evesham buildings through the morning, and visit friends in the afternoon, not returning home until after dinner. Then the evenings would be their time together, seeming 'to combine, in a considerable degree, the novelty and lively sensation of a visit, with the more delicious and heartfelt pleasures of domestic life.' (Locke, p. 125) This would indicate that the post-mortem 'chez elle' visits might have been research trips for Memoirs, particularly since Godwin revises the book the day after the 26th June visit. A note in the Diary for 20 September 1797, however, states that Godwin removes from Evesham Buildings, making the Polygon his sole residence. Another possibility is that there was a mistake in Godwin’s own transcription of the diary, though this is less likely. We have chosen not to code these post-mortem examples of 'chez elle' as Wollstonecraft for obvious reasons. However, it is likely that they indicate a visit to her home and should probably have a 'place name' tag. They will also appear in single-word searches along with the list of other examples of 'chez elle', though separate from lists of occurrences of Wollstonecraft..

For other members of the Wollstonecraft family, see note to WOL03.

• DNB
• St Clair
• Locke
• The Collected Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft, ed. by Janet Todd (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003).
• William Godwin, Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman (London: Joseph Johnson, 1798).

This table lists the people this person is most frequently noted with in the diary.