William Godwin

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Standard Name: Godwin, William

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Dedications Mary Shelley
MS was the only one of the group to rise to Byron 's challenge by completing a ghost story, which she did almost a year later, on 14 May 1817.
Shelley, Mary. “Introduction”. Frankenstein, edited by David Lorne Macdonald and Kathleen Scherf, Broadview, 1994, pp. 11-43.
33
She dedicated the printed...
Employer Eliza Fenwick
EF , still writing and publishing little books for children, also ran the Juvenile Library (a bookshop) for William and Mary Jane Godwin .
Grundy, Isobel, and Eliza Fenwick. “Introduction and Appendices”. Secresy, 2nd ed., Broadview, 1998, pp. 7 - 34, 361.
13-14
Family and Intimate relationships Harriet Lee
HL turned down a marriage proposal from William Godwin , recent widower of Mary Wollstonecraft .
Lee, Sophia. “Introduction”. The Recess, edited by April Alliston, University Press of Kentucky, 2000, p. ix - lii.
xxxiv
Family and Intimate relationships Mary Shelley
Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (later Shelley) bore a son, whom she named William after her father .
Shelley, Mary. “Introduction”. Frankenstein, edited by David Lorne Macdonald and Kathleen Scherf, Broadview, 1994, pp. 11-43.
41
Family and Intimate relationships Mary Wollstonecraft
MW made a move in her re-entry to London intellectual life by calling on her old friend William Godwin .
Tomalin, Claire. The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft. Revised, Penguin, 1992.
244-5
Family and Intimate relationships Mary Wollstonecraft
MW and William Godwin became lovers.
Tomalin, Claire. The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft. Revised, Penguin, 1992.
257-61
Family and Intimate relationships Charlotte Dacre
CD 's father was born Jacob Rey , a Portuguese Sephardic Jew in London. Tom Paine the radical later recalled that as a poor and friendless child in Ailiffe-Street, an obscure part of the...
Family and Intimate relationships Mary Wollstonecraft
MW and William Godwin , against their principles but for the sake of the coming baby, were married at St Pancras Church, London.
Tomalin, Claire. The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft. Revised, Penguin, 1992.
266
Family and Intimate relationships Charlotte Dacre
Their topics were his bankruptcy some years before (which had brought the loss of his house and book collection, and a prison term) and his recent trial. He had been charged by two prostitutes with...
Family and Intimate relationships Amelia Opie
Both Holcroft (who, four times married and widowed, was now fresh from being arrested for treason and discharged) and Godwin (while not yet a lover of Wollstonecraft) took a romantic or flirtatious as well as...
Family and Intimate relationships Eliza Fenwick
William Godwin recorded in his diary the death of John Fenwick , estranged husband of EF (who was then living at New Haven, Connecticut).
Godwin, William. William Godwin’s Diary. 12 Nov. 2010, http://godwindiary.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/search.html.
Family and Intimate relationships Mary Shelley
MS 's father, radical writer and philosopher William Godwin , remarried in 1801.
Hill-Miller, Katherine C. ’My Hideous Progeny’: Mary Shelley, William Godwin, and the Father-Daughter Relationship. University of Delaware Press; Associated University Presses, 1995.
22, 24, 28
Mellor, Anne K. Mary Shelley: Her Life, Her Fiction, Her Monsters. Routledge, 1988.
xv, 6
Sunstein, Emily W. Mary Shelley: Romance and Reality. Little, Brown, 1989.
27
His position as a thinker, renowned in radical circles, meant that his children grew up in...
Family and Intimate relationships Eliza Fenwick
The date of EF 's marriage to John Fenwick is not known, though it seems that she was young at the time, still in her teens. He was nine years older, like her the child...
Family and Intimate relationships Eliza Fenwick
He took with him a presentation copy of Godwin 's newly-published Political Justice.
Grundy, Isobel, and Eliza Fenwick. “Introduction and Appendices”. Secresy, 2nd ed., Broadview, 1998, pp. 7 - 34, 361.
8
The next year he published part one of a translation from French: Memoirs of General Dumourier, a military leader...
Family and Intimate relationships Augusta Webster
AW 's maternal grandfather, Joseph Hume , was a translator of Dante , and a friend of Charles Lamb , William Hazlitt , and William Godwin .
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
under Joseph Hume

Timeline

4 April 1788: At about the time that he lost his religious...

Writing climate item

4 April 1788

At about the time that he lost his religious faith, William Godwin began keeping a diary, which he continued almost daily until 26 March 1836, only two weeks before he died.
Clemit, Patricia. “William Godwin’s Papers in the Abinger Deposit: An Unmapped Country”. Bodleian Library Record, Vol.
xviii
, No. 3, Apr. 2004, pp. 253-63.
254-6, 258-9

7 February 1792: Thomas Holcroft, radical or Jacobin novelist...

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7 February 1792

Thomas Holcroft , radical or Jacobin novelist and dramatist of working-class origins (father of another future writer, Fanny Holcroft ) published his novel Anna St Ives.
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.
Godwin, William. William Godwin’s Diary. 12 Nov. 2010, http://godwindiary.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/search.html.

14 June 1792: The title of radical novelist Robert Bage's...

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14 June 1792

The title of radical novelist Robert Bage 's anonymous Man As He Is, published this day, suggests the unpalatable truths revealed by reformers or satirists; it influenced later titles chosen by William Godwin and...

February 1793: William Godwin published his Enquiry Concerning...

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February 1793

William Godwin published his Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, a radical text which was highly influential, not least for Godwin's future son-in-law Percy Bysshe Shelley .
Solo: Search Oxford University Libraries Online. 18 July 2011, http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vid=OXVU1&fromLogin=true&reset_config=true.
Butler, Marilyn, editor. Burke, Paine, Godwin, and the Revolution Controversy. Cambridge University Press, 1984.
149

8 May 1794: Godwin finished revising his postscript to...

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8 May 1794

Godwin finished revising his postscript to Things as They Are; or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams (published later that year), altering the emphasis given when he first finished the novel on 30 April 1794.
Godwin, William. Caleb Williams. Editor Hindle, Maurice, Penguin, 1988.
xxxvii-xxxix

By July 1794: William Godwin published his best-known novel,...

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By July 1794

William Godwin published his best-known novel, Things as They Are; or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 5 series.
2nd ser. 11 (1794): 290-6
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 5 series.
6 (1758): 170-1
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.
Solo: Search Oxford University Libraries Online. 18 July 2011, http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vid=OXVU1&fromLogin=true&reset_config=true.

September 1794: Indictments against Thomas Hardy, John Horne...

National or international item

September 1794

Indictments against Thomas Hardy , John Horne Tooke , and John Thelwall argued that proposals radically to limit the power of the king should rank as treason.
Epstein, James. “Great Palladium”. London Review of Books, 7 Sept. 2000, pp. 25-6.
25-6

6 October 1794: A London grand jury found twelve accused...

National or international item

6 October 1794

A London grand jury found twelve accused radicals guilty of high treason. Lord Chief Justice Eyre had delivered them the charge.
Goodwin, Albert. The Friends of Liberty: The English Democratic Movement in the Age of the French Revolution. Hutchinson, 1979.
335
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder, 1908–2024, 22 vols. plus supplements.

1798: Thomas Robert Malthus anonymously published...

Building item

1798

Thomas Robert Malthus anonymously published in LondonAn Essay on the Principle of Population, which later attached his name to the birth control movement.
Tannahill, Reay. Sex in History. Stein and Day, 1980.
406
Fryer, Peter. The Birth Controllers. Secker and Warburg, 1965.
70
Graham, Kenneth W. “Beckford, Godwin, Austen, and the Divisive 1790s”. Persuasions, Vol.
24
, 2002, pp. 33-46.
37
O’Brien, Karen. Women and Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century Britain. Cambridge University Press, 2009.
228-9
Shapin, Steven. “Libel on the Human Race”. London Review of Books, Vol.
36
, No. 11, 5 June 2015, pp. 26-9.

2 July 1798: The conservative Lady's Monthly Museum: or...

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2 July 1798

The conservative Lady's Monthly Museum: or polite repository of amusement and instruction published its first number. Sometimes called The Ladies' Monthly Museum . . . it ran until the 1830s.
Watson, George, and Ian Roy Wilson, editors. The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature. Cambridge University Press, 1969, 5 vols., http://U of A, HSS Ruth N Flr 1 Ref.
Beetham, Margaret. A Magazine of Her Own?: Domesticity and Desire in the Woman’s Magazine, 1800-1914. Routledge, 1996.
216
Pitcher, Edward W. The "Lady’s Monthly Museum". First Series: 1798-1806. Edwin Mellen Press, 2000.
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.

13 December 1800: William Godwin's five-act verse tragedy Antonio...

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13 December 1800

William Godwin 's five-act verse tragedy Antonio was performed for the first and last time at Drury Lane . It was rejected by the audience, not with hissing but with coughing.
Burton, Sarah. A Double Life: A Biography of Charles and Mary Lamb. Viking, 2003.
184

By 25 October 1820: William Godwin published his Answer to Malthus,...

Building item

By 25 October 1820

William Godwin published his Answer to Malthus, arguing that human beings were not increasing to the point of being unable to feed themselves.
Quarterly Review. J. Murray.
26 (1821): 148
OCLC WorldCat. 1992–1998, http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/content/worldcat/. Accessed 1999.
Graham, Kenneth W. “Beckford, Godwin, Austen, and the Divisive 1790s”. Persuasions, Vol.
24
, 2002, pp. 33-46.
37
Godwin, William. William Godwin’s Diary. 12 Nov. 2010, http://godwindiary.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/search.html.

November 2010: The voluminous diary kept by William Godwin...

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November 2010

The voluminous diary kept by William Godwin (strictly a record of events, with little or no comment) became available to scholars on line, meticulously edited by Mark Philp and his collaborators.
Godwin, William. William Godwin’s Diary. 12 Nov. 2010, http://godwindiary.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/search.html.

Texts

Godwin, William. Caleb Williams. Editor Hindle, Maurice, Penguin, 1988.
Sherburn, George, and William Godwin. “Introduction”. Caleb Williams, Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1960, p. vii - xx.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. Posthumous Works. Editor Godwin, William, Joseph Johnson, 1798.
Smith, Charlotte, and William Godwin. “Prologue”. Antonio, 1st ed., G. G. and J. Robinson, 1800.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. “The Wrongs of Woman; or, Maria. A Fragment”. Posthumous Works, edited by William Godwin, Joseph Johnson, 1798, p. Vols. I - II.
Godwin, William. William Godwin’s Diary. http://godwindiary.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/search.html.