The surviving manuscripts for many of William Godwin’s best-known works are held at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. The manuscripts for Political Justice and Caleb Williams were both digitised in 2017 and are now included in the Shelley-Godwin Archive. [1]
William Godwin was an English journalist, political philosopher, and novelist. He was born on 3 March 1756 in Cambridgeshire, England, to John and Anne Godwin, becoming the seventh of their thirteen children. The family was middle-class, and his parents adhered to a strict form of Calvinism.
In 1778, Godwin graduated from the Dissenting Academy in Hoxton, a hotspot for classical liberalism. This period of his life exposed Godwin to Enlightenment ideas and philosophical principles that would shape his intellectual development.
Throughout 1783, Godwin published a series of written works, beginning with an anonymously-published biography of William Pitt the Elder, but he is most famous for two books that he published during year 1793, An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, an attack on political institutions, and Things as They Are; or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams, an early mystery novel which attacks aristocratic privilege
Godwin first met pioneering feminist writer, Mary Wollstonecraft, at the home of their mutual publisher, Joseph Johnson. He didn’t see her again for some years, but when they were reintroduced in 1796, their respect for each other soon grew into friendship, sexual attraction, and love. Once Wollstonecraft became pregnant, they married so their child would be considered legitimate by society. Their union was short-lived as Wollstonecraft died shortly after giving birth to their daughter, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (later known as Mary Shelley), in 1797. Godwin’s life took a challenging turn with the loss of his wife, but he continued his intellectual pursuits and became a single father to Mary and Wollstonecraft’s older child, Fanny.
William Godwin’s ideas and writings had a lasting impact on the Romantic and radical intellectual movements of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His emphasis on reason, individualism, and the pursuit of justice left an indelible mark on the political and philosophical thought of his time, influencing subsequent generations of thinkers and writers. He died on 7 April 1836, aged 80.
Selected links for relevant websites, books, movies, videos, and more. Some of these links lead to protected content on this website, learn more about that here.