20 September 1796

Mary Wollstonecraft to Mary Hays, undated [postmark 20 September 1796].1

        If this letter should not be forwarded, pray request that it may be returned.

    Fanny is recovering her beauty daily. Are you quite restored to health?

    I will send you the Monk as soon as Mr Godwin returns it, to whom I have lent it. He means to call on you soon.2

  I return your Sister’s M.S. with some observations which appear to me important.

                                     Yours

                                                 Mary

Tuesday Morning

When am I to see you and your Sister? – and your Mother, if she be not afraid to venture out.

Address: Miss Hays

Postmark: 20 September 1796

1 MS MW 0042, Pforzheimer Collection, NYPL; Brooks, Correspondence 307-08; Todd, Collected Letters 367. Godwin will call on Hays on 28 September.

2 Reference is the sensational gothic novel, The Monk: A Romance (1796), by Matthew Lewis (1775-1818).