 Frustrated by the limited career options open to respectable yet poor women — an impediment which Wollstonecraft eloquently describes in the chapter of Thoughts on the Education of Daughters entitled " Unfortunate Situation of Females , Fashionably Educated , and Left Without a Fortune " — she decided , after only a year as a governess , to embark upon a career as an author . This was a radical choice , since , at the time , few women could support themselves by writing . As she wrote to her sister Everina in 1787 , she was trying to become " the first of a new genus " . She moved to London and , assisted by the liberal publisher Joseph Johnson , found a place to live and work to support herself . She learned French and German and translated texts , most notably Of the Importance of Religious Opinions by Jacques Necker and Elements of Morality , for the Use of Children by Christian Gotthilf Salzmann . She also wrote reviews , primarily of novels , for Johnson 's periodical , the Analytical Review . Wollstonecraft 's intellectual universe expanded during this time , not only from the reading that she did for her reviews but also from the company she kept : she attended Johnson 's famous dinners and met such luminaries as the radical pamphleteer Thomas Paine and the philosopher William Godwin . The first time Godwin and Wollstonecraft met , they were both disappointed in each other . Godwin had come to hear Paine , but Wollstonecraft assailed him all night long , disagreeing with him on nearly every subject . Johnson himself , however , became much more than a friend ; she described him in her letters as a father and a brother . 
