Exclusive interview with author Bee Rowlatt and her journey to follow in Mary Wollstonecraft’s footsteps
Rating: 3 Stars
Review by Gabrielle Pantera
“In Search of Mary has taken me around the world, meeting audiences from Glasgow to Moscow,” says author Bee Rowlatt. “People regularly say they can’t believe they’d never heard of such an extraordinary and influential woman. As a student I had marvelled at her courage and pioneering spirit. But, now the inspiration lay in the fact that she travelled and wrote with a baby in tow. She was the world’s first treasure-hunting, single-mum philosopher on the high seas.”
Rowlatt goes on many trips of self-discovery. She writes about her experiences travelling with her son and compares it to Wollstonecraft’s travels with her child. Critical of herself, Rowlatt compares her life to others who are less fortunate. She takes the same journeys and some trips that Wollstonecraft never got to take. Rowlatt gains insights into her own life and a deeper appreciation of her family.
Wollstonecraft is considered to be one of history’s leading proto-feminists. She caused something of a scandal in the 18th century as a woman travelling without male protection. An early advocate of women’s rights, Wollstonecraft travelled with her maid and her baby daughter to Scandinavia and authored A Vindication of the Rights of Women and Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark. The book became a bestseller, an inspiration for Romantic writers and poets. But she suffered terribly after moving to Paris by falling in love with the rakish Gilbert Imlay, who betrayed her repeatedly.
Rowlatt’s book begins with Bee Rowlatt feeling in a rut. Happily married and a mother of four, she talks to her husband about going on a journey to find herself. She will take the same journey that Wollstonecraft took and with her youngest, who is about the same age of Wollstonecraft’s’s baby. Rowlatt travels first to Sweden, Norway and Denmark.
Rowlatt has a wonderful time with her son Will on her trip, and plans two more, one to Paris and then to California in search of herself and her feminism.
“Several years ago I rediscovered my old copy of Mary Wollstonecraft’s 1796 travel book Letters from Norway,” says Rowlatt. “So, I took up the challenge to recreate her travels.”
Rowlett read all she could about Wollstonecraft’s life and legacy. “I found a lot of help in the brilliant biographical writings of Lyndall Gordon and Charlotte Gordon…no relation. I combined this with actually going to the places that she wrote about, and trying to channel her words and her feelings in the same locations. I’m a journalist not an academic, and my goal was to bring Wollstonecraft to new audiences and make her more accessible to the reader. Perhaps the most ridiculous part of this was to attempt to retrace her footsteps with my own baby. That took the adventure to a whole new level.”
Rowlett co-wrote the best-seller Talking about Jane Austen in Baghdad which was dramatized by the BBC. She’s regular feature writer for the BBC and other print media. She’s published in the Virago anthology, Fifty Shades of Feminism. In Search of Mary was recently awarded the UK Real Life Reads 2016 prize.
Adrian Sington is Rowlatt’s agent. “I love her voice,” says Sington. “It’s funny, observational and intelligent. When I met her a first thought was that I could sell her first book, which I did to Penguin.
“It’s been a huge joy to see Mary Wollstonecraft finding so many new friends,” says Rowlett. “I’m part of a campaign to promote her legacy and raise a statue of her in London, where over 9 out of 10 statues are of men.”
Rowlatt is currently in the early stages of writing a novel, plus doing her usual BBC journalism.
She lives in London, and is currently based in New Delhi, India, where her husband is the BBC’s correspondent for the region. She was born in Yorkshire.
In Search of Mary: The Mother of all Journeys by Bee Rowlatt.Paperback, 288 pages, Publisher: Alma Books (July 5, 2016), Language: English ISBN: 9781846883781 $17.00
