'Now, daughter, I'm to tell you a story to coax you into the world...'
London, 1797. Mary Wollstonecraft awaits the arrival of the midwife who will help bring her child into the world, and support her through the testing eleven days that follow.
After the birth, both mother and daughter fight for survival. Even as Mary's strength wanes, she urgently weaves the tale of her life to bind her frail Little Bird close.
Wollstonecraft's journey to vindicate the rights of women spanned Europe and broke the conventions of the time. Amid the triumph and loss, she blazed a trail and passed that legacy on to her child, the future Mary Shelley.
Love and Fury reclaims the all too brief moment when the stories of mother and daughter overlapped. It is a lyrical and moving tribute to an influential thinker and a remarkable woman.
Praise for Love and Fury:
'A luminous love-letter' Annabel Abbs, author of Frieda
'Intensely moving . like watching newly-colorized archive film burst into life-I knew the story, but I never knew the story like this' Bee Rowlatt, author of In Search of Mary
'Here is a novel set on the border between living and dying, with a heroine so powerful she conquers all territories, including this one-and she conquered me, too. Love and Fury thrums with beauty, pain, sorrow, wonder, tragedy, triumph, and life. What an extraordinary and transformative book this is' Clare Beams, author of The Illness Lesson
' Love and Fury sparks with a thrilling jolt of electricity, reanimating the epic legacy of Mary Wollstonecraft, mother of Frankenstein author Mary Shelley . a spun-gold tale both sweeping and intimate' Afia Atakora, author of Conjure Women