Mary Wollstonecraft singled the book out as one of few examples of the self-improvement genre that deserved praise. Only sentimental novels were to be avoided. The niece was also urged to study book-keeping, household management, botany, geology and astronomy. They focused on encouraging rational understanding through the reading of the Bible, history and literature. A further 12 editions had appeared by 1829, at least one of them a French translation. were written initially for Chapone's 15-year-old niece in 1773, but by 1800 had been through at least 16 editions. Title page from the first edition of Hester Chapone's Letters on the Improvement of the Mind (1773), one of the most popular conduct books at the time Mary Wollstonecraft was writing her first work She died at Monken Hadley, Middlesex, on 25 December 1801. Hester Chapone became associated with the learned ladies or Bluestockings who gathered around Elizabeth Montagu and wrote Letters on the Improvement of the Mind and Miscellanies. 1728–1761), the son of an earlier moral writer, Sarah Chapone (1699–1764), but she was soon widowed. She was married in 1760 to the solicitor John Chapone (c. Her earliest published works were four brief pieces for Samuel Johnson's journal The Rambler in 1750. She was educated more thoroughly than most girls in that period, learning French, Italian and Latin, and began writing regularly and corresponding with other writers at the age of 18. Hester, the daughter of Thomas Mulso (1695–1763), a gentleman farmer, and his wife (died 1747/1748), a daughter of Colonel Thomas, wrote a romance at the age of nine entitled 'The Loves of Amoret and Melissa', which earned her mother's disapproval. She became associated with the London Bluestockings. Hester Chapone née Mulso (27 October 1727, in Twywell, Northamptonshire – 25 December 1801, in Hadwell, Middlesex), was an English writer of conduct books for women.

Hester by Mrs. Oliphant