Helen Maria Williams — abolitionist and political radical
- Creator(s):
- Williams, Helen Maria
- Title:
- Letters containing a sketch of the politics of France: from the thirty-first of May 1793, till the twenty-eighth of July 1794, and of the scenes which have passed in the prisons of Paris
- Publication/Origin:
- Philadelphia: Printed for Mathew Carey, William Young, Thomas Dobson, H. & P. Rice, and John Ormrod, 1796
- Description:
- Abolitionist and feminist Helen Maria Williams was an important participant in the revolutionary discourse of the late eighteenth century, alongside Mary Wollstonecraft and Thomas Paine. In 1790, Williams joined a group of British radicals residing in Paris and hosted a salon that attracted leading revolutionaries. Her Letters gave British readers a sustained eyewitness account of the French Revolution, suggesting France as a model for England. Though sympathetic to the Revolution, she was jailed for her British citizenship during the Reign of Terror. She became a French citizen in 1817.
- Citation:
- Williams, Helen Maria, Letters containing a sketch of the politics of France: from the thirty-first of May 1793, till the twenty-eighth of July 1794, and of the scenes which have passed in the prisons of Paris, Philadelphia: Printed for Mathew Carey, William Young, Thomas Dobson, H. & P. Rice, and John Ormrod, 1796, Lisa Unger Baskin Collection, Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University. Accessed April 25, 2024, https://exhibits.library.duke.edu/exhibits/show/baskin/item/4067