For a woman, a one-year-old child, and a maid to travel to Scandinavia without the protection of a man was unprecedented in the eighteenth century. The book resulting from the trip also seemed highly unusual to readers at the time: details of Wollstonecraft's travels to a rarely visited area of the world, what one editor of the "Letters Written in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark" describes as "a boreal wilderness", intrigued and even shocked contemporary readers. The unorthodox theology of the book also alienated some readers. The " Monthly Magazine and American Review" wrote: