Olympe de Gouges was one of the most significant women of the French Revolution, a pioneer for women's rights. Her Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen from 1791, intended as a necessary counterpart to the Declaration of the Rights of Man, is considered a founding document of feminism. She also wrote pamphlets against slavery and racism and was an early advocate for the establishment of women's shelters. As an opponent of the Jacobins and a declared enemy of Robespierre, she was executed in 1793 on the guillotine. Her most important texts have been newly translated and commented on for this edition. Margarete Stokowski explains in her accompanying essay the fate and historical significance of this courageous woman.