Mary Astell was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, on November 12, 1666. Her parents, Peter Astell and Mary Errington, both belonged to well respected families with royalist leanings. Astell’s early intellectual development was influenced most heavily by her uncle Ralph Astell, who provided her with a familiarity with Anglican theology. After her father’s death in 1678, her family fell on financial troubles, creating a precarious social situation. Although Astell did not seem to want to marry, her family would not have been able to afford the dowry even if she had. She remained unmarried all her life, choosing the life of a writer instead, and going on to write many works criticizing the institution of marriage. A year later, her uncle passed away, leaving her without a teacher. Despite this, Astell continued to teach herself in a variety of subjects, finding an aptitude for political philosophy.
In the late 1680s Astell made a bold move to London, with no support from her family. Eventually Astell began engaging in philosophy by writing her own works. In 1693 she began a correspondence with John Norris, discussing moral and metaphysical ideas surrounding God. Their letters continued for a year, and were published as Letters Concerning the Love of God.
Astell began as a serious writer in 1694 as she published her first Proposal, A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, employing ideas from Descartes. Astell’s writing career progressed and began to flourish, with Some Reflections upon Marriage being her most popular feminist publication. Astell had the support of many other women with high social status, such as Lady Ann Coventry, Lady Catherine Jones, Lady Elizabeth Hastins, and Elizabeth Hutcheson. These female benefactors helped to continue Astell’s writing career for about a decade, in which she produced some of her most influential works.
Though Astell’s works are widely considered to be feminist, her other intellectual and political commitments seem to work against feminism as we know it today. Astell fervently advocated against the institution of marriage and for the development of the intellect of women, but she was also a high-church Tory and conservative pamphlet writer. Tories are monarchists, and were historically opposed to the liberalism of the Whig party. Following her publication of Some Reflections upon Marriage, Astell seemed to have been commissioned by her bookseller Richard Wilkin to write several Tory political pamphlets. That Astell was able to represent such a stark contrast between views is interesting. For her time, Astell’s feminist thoughts were very radical, going completely against the accepted gendered social order and societal roles. Contemporary scholars have continued to work towards understanding why Astell may have held these views and how they influenced her work as a philosopher. Astell released her final publication Bartlemy Fair in 1709, and withdrew from public life soon after. Instead of a public writing career, Astell became head of a charity school for poor girls in Chelsea, designing the school curriculum herself. In 1726 Astell was invited to live with Lady Catherine Jones, whom she lived with until her death in 1731. After undergoing a mastectomy to remove a cancerous breast, Mary Astell died in her home in Chelsea on May 11, 1731.