With vision, intention, determination and focus, Wollstonecraft announced to her sister Everina that she would become a different kind of writer, what she termed, a new genus. Even though she published for only nine years before her untimely death, her aspiration was fait accompli, so much so that many scholars and biographers credit Wollstonecraft for being a pioneer as a political thinker, an unconventional woman, a reformer and a writer with innovative narrative technique and theory. Wollstonecraft successfully broke new ground that would make way for the appearance and growth of new kinds of people— especially new women who could be freer, more virtuous, more productive and happier. Her innovative writing techniques also launched a new school of women writers, who would imitate her style and then mature it.

Perhaps one can make the claim that Mary Hays, who revered Wollstonecraft as one would a guru, should be considered as the first fruit of Wollstonecraft's labor, thus the rationale for the subtitle to this chapter. To be so recognized was quite an honor to Hays until Wollstonecraft's “sins” were exposed to the public, and then Hays denounced her. After the publication of Godwin's Memoirs, being associated with her and attempting to defend her could only besmirch her own reputation and destroy her literary career. As a single woman depended upon the income from her writing, Hays could not afford to share Wollstonecraft's ignominy. After a valiant attempt to redeem Wollstonecraft in a short biography published in the Annual Necrology, one that triggered blistering attacks, Hays severed her relationship with Godwin.

Before that, Hays arguably had been Wollstonecraft's closest female friend in the last days of her life, staying next to her through the labor and deathwatch. Todd asserts that Hays visited every day (Revolutionary 455–56), and Godwin's biographer Peter Marshall says she attended through the end and afterward (191). However, Gina Walker records that Godwin barred her from the death chamber beginning September 5, 1797 (Idea 249, “Two” 61) but does not document this information. Lyndall Gordon describes the row between Hays and Godwin and states that the two had very little to do with each other after Wollstonecraft's death (365), but Gordon likewise offers no documentation.