The writings of the High Church Tory pamphleteer Mary Astell (1666-1731) are a remarkable contribution to the constitutional debates that ushered in the modern democratic state. An interlocutor with Swift and Defoe, Astell was perhaps the first systematic critic of Locke's writings. Astell's political pamphlets Reflections upon Marriage, A Fair Way with the Dissenters, and An Impartial Enquiry into the Origins of Rebellion have never been reprinted in their entirety. This new edition makes accessible the major works of an important political theorist.

Throughout her life, in her personal relationships as well as in her role as a public intellectual, the English thinker Mary Astell (1666-1731) supported women, wrote to and for women, and, to the greatest extent possible, moved from advocacy for to action on behalf of women. In her first published work, A Serious Proposal to the Ladies (London 1694), Astell proposed the establishment of an educational institution for women aimed solely at fulfilling their needs, a place where women could withdraw from a harsh and threatening world controlled by men and organized to suit men's desires,...