Feminism in its modern meanings attests to a movement for change in the social, economic
and legal position of women. In the Romantic period, no such movement existed. There
were, however, individual women whose voices, separately and together, suggest the
existence of a commonality of feeling around the intellectual advancement of the female
sex. This article examines writing by women on female education and sexual and social
reform, focussing on the work of Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Hays, Mary Robinson, and Mary
Lamb. It connects political writing and educational treatises to the novels and essays
written by these women and it reflects on the shared concerns from which modern feminism
emerged.