In William Godwin’s 1798 publication of Posthumous Works of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman, we find Mary Wollstonecraft’s last, yet unfinished, literary attempt, The Wrongs of Woman: or, Maria. A Fragment. Although Godwin claims to leave the novella in its original, “found” state, he nevertheless participates in editorial practices that grant the text a sublime aestheticism. Through interlacing the theories of Romantic Fragment Poems, prose poetry, and the fluid text, I intend to reveal the multiplicity of text, a theory to which both Wollstonecraft and Godwin cater in their writing and editing, respectively. I contend that they both advance a reading of the fluid text, albeit by different means. As such, I consider their efforts separately yet nevertheless complementary in penning a “lyric novella,” a term I believe best represents the text in hand.
