Gilbert Imlay

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Gilbert Imlay, (1754?-1828), was an officer in the American Revolutionary War, a businessman and an author. He had a brief affair with Mary Wollstonecraft that resulted in the birth of a daughter, Fanny Imlay.

After the Revolutionary War, Imlay settled in Kentucky where he wrote A Topographical Description of the Western Territory of North America. It was eventually published in London in 1792. He also tried his hand at novel-writing, publishing The Emigrants in 1793. Imlay left the United States in 1786 for London where he became a speculator and trader. In 1793, during the French Revolution, he became a diplomatic representative of the United States to France while at the same time pursuing his own business interests. At the time the British were blockading the French ports and he profited by running that blockade. When in 1794 his business interests and his affair with Wollstonecraft collapsed, he returned to England.