Addressed to mothers, young women, and teachers, Thoughts on the Education of Daughters explains how to educate a woman from infancy through marriage.
In her later works, such as A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790) and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), Wollstonecraft repeatedly returns to the topics addressed in Thoughts, particularly the virtue of hard work and the imperative for women to learn useful skills.