William Godwin | |
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 Portrait byHenry William Pickersgill | |
| Born | (1756-03-03)3 March 1756 Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, England |
| Died | 7 April 1836(1836-04-07) (aged 80) Westminster, Middlesex, England |
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| Education | Hoxton Academy |
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William Godwin (3 March 1756 – 7 April 1836) was an English journalist,political philosopher and novelist. He is considered one of the first exponents ofutilitarianism and the first modern proponent ofanarchism.[1] Godwin is most famous for two books that he published within the space of a year:An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, an attack on political institutions, andThings as They Are; or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams, an early mystery novel that criticizesaristocratic privilege. Based on the success of both works, Godwin featured prominently in the radical circles of London in the 1790s. He wrote prolifically in the genres of novels, history anddemography throughout his life.
In the conservative reaction to British radicalism, Godwin was attacked, in part because of his marriage to the feminist writerMary Wollstonecraft in 1797 andhis candid biography of her after her death from childbirth. Their daughter, later known asMary Shelley, would go on to writeFrankenstein and marry the poetPercy Bysshe Shelley. With his second wife,Mary Jane Clairmont, Godwin established The Juvenile Library, which allowed the family to write their own works for children (sometimes undernoms de plume) as well as translate and publish many other books, some of enduring significance. Godwin has had considerable influence on British literature and literary culture.
Godwin was born inWisbech,Isle of Ely,Cambridgeshire, to John and Anne Godwin, becoming the seventh of his parents' thirteen children.[2] Godwin's family on both sides were middle-class and his parents adhered to a strict form ofCalvinism. Godwin's mother came from a wealthy family but due to her uncle's frivolities the family wealth was squandered. Fortunately for the family, her father was a successful merchant involved in theBaltic Sea trade.[3] Shortly following William's birth, his father John, aNonconformistminister, moved the family to Debenham in Suffolk and later toGuestwick in Norfolk, which had a radical history as aRoundhead stronghold during theEnglish Civil War.[4] At the localmeeting house, John Godwin often found himself sitting in "Cromwell's Chair", which had been a gift to the town by theLord Protector.[5]
William Godwin came from a long line ofEnglish Dissenters, who facedreligious discrimination by the British government, and was inspired by his grandfather and father to take up the dissenting tradition and become a minister himself.[6] At eleven years old, he became the sole pupil ofSamuel Newton, ahard-line Calvinist and adisciple ofRobert Sandeman.[7] Although Newton's strict method ofdiscipline left Godwin with a lastinganti-authoritarianism, Godwin internalized the Sandemaniancreed, which emphasisedrationalism,egalitarianism andconsensus decision-making.[8] Despite Godwin's later renunciation of Christianity, he maintained his Sandemanian roots, which he held responsible for his commitment to rationalism, as well as hisstoic personality.[9] Godwin later characterised Newton as, "... a celebrated north country apostle, who, after Calvin damned ninety-nine in a hundred of mankind, has contrived a scheme for damning ninety-nine in a hundred of the followers of Calvin."[10] In 1771, Godwin was finally dismissed by Newton and returned home, but his father died the following year, which prompted his mother to urge him to continue his education.[11]
At seventeen years old, Godwin beganhigher education at theDissenting Academy inHoxton,[12] where he studied underAndrew Kippis, the biographer, andAbraham Rees, who was responsible for theCyclopaedia, or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences.[13] A hotspot forliberalism, at the Academy, Godwin familiarized himself withJohn Locke'sapproach to psychology,Isaac Newton'sscientific method andFrancis Hutcheson'sethical system, which all informed Godwin's philosophies ofdeterminism andimmaterialism.[9] Although Godwin had joined the Academy as a committedTory,[14] the outbreak of theAmerican Revolution led him to support theWhig opposition and, after reading the works ofJonathan Swift, he became a staunchrepublican.[9] He soon familiarised himself with the Frenchphilosophes, learning ofJean-Jacques Rousseau's belief in the inherent goodness ofhuman nature and opposition toprivate property, as well asClaude Adrien Helvétius'sutilitarianism andPaul-Henri Thiry'smaterialism.[15]
In 1778, Godwin graduated from the academy and was quickly appointed as a minister inWare, where he metJoseph Fawcett, one of his main direct influences. By 1780, he had been reassigned toStowmarket, where he first readPaul-Henri Thiry'sSystem of Nature, adopting his philosophies ofdeterminism andmaterialism.[16] But after a conflict with other dissenting ministers ofSuffolk over the administration of theeucharist, he stepped down and left forLondon in April 1782,[17] resigning his career as a minister to become awriter.[15]
Throughout 1783, Godwin published a series of written works, beginning with an anonymously-published biography ofWilliam Pitt the Elder,[18] followed by a couple of pro-Whig political pamphlets.[19] He also briefly attempted to return to ministerial work inBeaconsfield, where he preached that "faith should be subordinated toreason".[20] A few months later, during the opening of aseminary inEpsom, Godwin gave a politically-charged speech in which he denouncedstate power as "artificial" and exalted thelibertarian potential of education, which he believed could bring an end toauthoritarian governments.[19] Godwin then worked for a spell as a satirical literary critic, publishingThe Herald of Literature, in which he reviewed non-existent works by real authors, imitating their writing styles in lengthy quotations.[21]
His work on theHerald secured him further work as a critic forJohn Murray'sEnglish Review and a commission to translateSimon Fraser's memoirs. In 1784, he published the romantic novelsDamon and Delia andImogen, the latter of which wasframed as a translation of a found manuscript fromancient Wales.[22] That same year, he also publishedSketches of History, which compiled six of his sermons about the characters ofAaron,Hazael andJesus.[23] Drawing fromJohn Milton'sParadise Lost, which depictedSatan as a rebel againsthis creator,[19] Godwin denounced the Christian God as atheocrat and atyrant that had no right to rule.[24]
As his early works were financially unsuccessful, in 1784, William Godwin hoped John Collins, a wealthy owner of a sugar plantation in St. Vincent would fund his writing. He did not succeed but the close connection between Godwin and members of the Collins family continued for fifty years.[25] John Collin's eldest daughterHarriet de Boinville and William met seventy-two times between 1809 and 1827, and she championed Godwin'sAn Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and Its Influence on Morals and Happiness (1793) at her salons during that time period.[26]
In further attempts to earn money, Godwin started writing for well-paying Whig journals onGrub Street, starting work as apolitical journalist for theNew Annual Register after being introduced toGeorgie Robinson byAndrew Kippis.[27] Godwin's work was then picked up by thePolitical Herald, where he wrote under thepseudonym of "Mucius" in order to attack theTories.[28] He subsequently reported on thePitt ministry's colonial rule inIreland andIndia; penned a history of theDutch Revolt and predicted the outbreak of arevolutionary wave in Europe.[29]
After the death of thePolitical Herald's editor, Godwin turned downRichard Brinsley Sheridan's offer of succeeding to the editorship, out of concern that hiseditorial independence would be compromised by a direct financial connection to theWhig Party.[28] But it was through Sheridan that Godwin became acquainted with a life-long friendThomas Holcroft,[30] whose arguments convinced Godwin to finally rejectChristianity and embraceatheism.[31] At the same time, Godwin took up aside job as atutor for the youngThomas Abthorpe Cooper. After a fractious relationship between the two, Godwin eventually became the orphaned boy'sadoptive father, which altered his style of pedagogy to one that emphasised "an open and honest relationship between tutor and pupil."[32]
With the outbreak of theFrench Revolution, Godwin was among theRadicals that enthusiastically welcomed the events as the spiritual successor to Britain's ownGlorious Revolution of 1688.[33] As a member of theRevolution Society,[34] Godwin met the political activistRichard Price, whoseDiscourse on the Love of Our Country espoused a radical form ofpatriotism that controversially upheldfreedom of religion,representative democracy and theright of revolution.[35] Price'sDiscourse ignited apamphlet war, beginning withEdmund Burke's publication of hisReflections on the Revolution in France, which defendedtraditionalist conservatism and opposed revolution.[36] In response to Burke,Thomas Paine published hisRights of Man with the help of Godwin,[37] who declared that "the seeds of revolution it contains are so vigorous in their stamina, that nothing can overpower them."[38]
But Godwin's voice remained largely absent from theRevolution Controversy, as he had started writing a work ofpolitical philosophy that developed on hisradical principles.[39] With George Robinson's financial support,[40] Godwin quit his work at theNew Annual Register and committed himself wholly to hismagnum opus,[41] which he hoped would condense the "best and most liberal in thescience of politics into a coherent system".[42] After sixteen months' work, while the revolution in France had culminated with theexecution of Louis XVI and the outbreak ofwar, Godwin published hisEnquiry Concerning Political Justice in February 1793.[43]
Godwin first metMary Wollstonecraft at the home of their mutual publisher.Joseph Johnson was hosting a dinner for another of his authors,Thomas Paine, and Godwin remarked years later that on that evening he heard too little of Paine and too much of Wollstonecraft; he did not see her again for some years. In the interim, Wollstonecraft went to live in France to witness the Revolution for herself, and had a child,Fanny Imlay, with an American adventurer named Gilbert Imlay. In pursuit ofGilbert Imlay's business affairs, Wollstonecraft travelled to Scandinavia, and soon afterwards publisheda book based on the voyage. Godwin read it, and later wrote that "If ever there was a book calculated to make a man in love with its author, this appears to me to be the book."[44]
When Godwin and Wollstonecraft were reintroduced in 1796, their respect for each other soon grew into friendship, sexual attraction, and love.[45] Once Wollstonecraft became pregnant, they decided to marry so that their child would be considered legitimate by society. Their marriage revealed the fact that Wollstonecraft had never been married to Imlay, and as a result she and Godwin lost many friends. Godwin received further criticism because he had advocated the abolition of marriage inPolitical Justice.[46] After their marriage atSt. Pancras on 29 March 1797, they moved into two adjoining houses inSomers Town so that they could both still retain their independence; they often communicated by notes delivered by servants.[47]
Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin was born in Somers Town on 30 August 1797, the couple's only child.[48]: 5 Godwin had hoped for a son and had been planning on naming the child "William".[49] On 10 September 1797 Wollstonecraft died of complications following the birth. By all accounts, it had been a happy and stable, though brief, relationship.[50] Now Godwin, who had been a bachelor until a few months before, was distraught at the loss of the love of his life. Simultaneously, he became responsible for the care of these two young girls, the new-born Mary and toddler Fanny.
When Mary was three years old, Godwin left his daughters in the care of James Marshall while he travelled to Ireland. Godwin's tone in his letters demonstrates how much he cared about them. His letters show the stress he placed on giving his two daughters a sense of security. "And now what shall I say for my poor little girls? I hope they have not forgot me. I think of them every day, and should be glad, if the wind was more favourable, to blow them a kiss a-piece from Dublin to the Polygon.. but I have seen none that I love so well or think half so good as my own."[49]
In December 1800 his playAntonio, or the Soldier's Return was put on at theTheatre Royal, Drury Lane without success.[51]
In 1801, Godwin married his neighbourMary Jane Clairmont.[52] She brought two of her own children into the household, Charles andClaire. JournalistH.N. Brailsford wrote in 1913, "She was a vulgar and worldly woman, thoroughly feminine, and rather inclined to boast of her total ignorance of philosophy."[53] While Fanny eventually learned to live with Clairmont, Mary's relationship with her stepmother was tense. Mary writes, "As to Mrs Godwin, something very analogous to disgust arises whenever I mention her",[48]: 200 "A woman I shudder to think of".[54]
In 1805, the Godwins set up a shop and publishing house called the Juvenile Library, significant in thehistory of children's literature. Through this, Godwin wrote children'sprimers on Biblical and classical history, and using the pseudonymEdward Baldwin, he wrote a variety of books for children, including a version ofJack and the Beanstalk,[55] and a biography of the Irish artistWilliam Mulready,[56] who illustrated works for them. They kept alive family ties, publishing the first book byMargaret King (then Lady Mount Cashell), who had been a favoured pupil of Mary Wollstonecraft.[57] They published works never since out of print, such asCharles andMary Lamb'sTales from Shakespeare. The Juvenile Library also translated European authors. The first English edition ofSwiss Family Robinson was translated (from the French, not the German) and edited by them.[58][59][60] The business was the family's mainstay for decades.
In 1807 his tragedyFaulkener was performed at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane without more success than his earlier play.[61]
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The eldest of Godwin's children wasFanny Imlay (1794–1816), who committed suicide as a young woman. Charles Gaulis Clairmont[62] ended up as Chair of English literature atVienna University[63] and taught sons of the royal family; news of his sudden death in 1849 distressedMaximilian.[64] Mary Godwin (1797–1851) gained fame asMary Shelley, author ofFrankenstein. Half a year younger than her wasClaire Clairmont, Mary Jane's only daughter, to whom she showed favouritism. The youngest, and the only child of the second marriage, wasWilliam Godwin the Younger (1803–1832). Godwin sent him first toCharterhouse School and then to various other establishments of a practical bent. Nonetheless, he eventually earned his living by the pen. He died at 29, leaving the manuscript of a novel, which Godwin saw into print. All of Godwin's children who lived into adulthood worked as writers or educators, carrying on his legacy and that of his wives. Only two of them had children who in turn survived:Percy Florence Shelley, and the son and daughter of Charles. Godwin did not welcome the birth ofAllegra Byron, but Claire's only child died aged five.
Godwin had high hopes for Mary, giving her a more rigorous intellectual experience than most women of her period, and describing her as "very intelligent". He wished to give his daughter a more "masculine education" and prepared her to be a writer. However, Godwin withdrew his support as Mary became a woman and pursued her relationship withPercy Bysshe Shelley.[65] Mary's first two novels,Frankenstein andMathilda, may be seen as a reaction to her childhood. Both explore the role of the father in the child's socialisation and the control the father has on the child's future.[66] Shelley's last two novels,Lodore andFalkner, re-evaluate the father-daughter relationship. They were written at a time when Shelley was raisingher only surviving child alone and supporting her ageing father. In both novels, the daughter eludes the father's control by giving him the traditional maternal figure he asks for. This relationship gives the daughter control of the father.[66][67]
Godwin was awarded asinecure position as Office Keeper and Yeoman Usher of the Receipt of the Exchequer,[68] which came withgrace and favour accommodation inNew Palace Yard, part of the complex of thePalace of Westminster, i.e. the Houses of Parliament.[69] One of his duties was to oversee thesweeping of the chimneys of these extensive buildings. On 16 October 1834, a fire broke out and most ofthe Palace burned down.[70] Literary criticMarilyn Butler concluded her review of a 1980 biography of Godwin by comparing him favourably toGuy Fawkes, joking that Godwin was more successful in his opposition to the status quo.[71]
In later years, Godwin came to expect support and consolation from his daughter. Two of the five children he had raised had pre-deceased him, and two more lived abroad. Mary responded to his expectations and she cared for him until he died in 1836.
In 1836, Harriet de Boinville described Godwin's death, in a letter to his daughter Mary, as "the extinction of a mastermind. ... Everything is interesting which relates to such a man, one of the gifted few under whose moral influences society is now vibrating."[72]
Godwin was buried next to Mary Wollstonecraft in the graveyard of St Pancras, the church where they had married in 1797. His second wife outlived him, and eventually was buried there too. The three share a gravestone. In the 1850s, Mary Shelley's only surviving child,Percy Florence Shelley, had the remains of Godwin and Wollstonecraft moved from what had become a run-down area of the capital to the more salubrious surroundings of Bournemouth, tohis family tomb at St Peter's Church.
The surviving manuscripts for many of Godwin's best-known works are held in the Forster Collection at theVictoria and Albert Museum. The V&A's manuscripts forPolitical Justice andCaleb Williams were both digitised in 2017 and are now included in the Shelley-Godwin Archive.[73]
His birthplace, Wisbech, has two memorials to him. A cul-de-sac was named in his honour Godwin Close, and awall plaque adorns a building adjacent to theAngles Theatre in Alexandra Road.
In 1793, while theFrench Revolution was in full swing, Godwin published his great work onpolitical science,Enquiry concerning Political Justice, and its Influence on General Virtue and Happiness. The first part of this book was largely a recap ofEdmund Burke'sA Vindication of Natural Society – a critique of thestate. Godwin acknowledged the influence of Burke for this portion. The rest of the book is Godwin's positive vision of how an anarchist (orminarchist) society might work.Political Justice was extremely influential in its time: after the writings of Burke andPaine, Godwin's was the most popular written response to the French Revolution. Godwin's work was seen by many as illuminating a middle way between the fiery extremes of Burke and Paine. Prime MinisterWilliam Pitt famously said that there was no need to censor it, because at over £1 it was too costly for the average Briton to buy. However, as was the practice at the time, numerous "corresponding societies" took upPolitical Justice, either sharing it or having it read to the illiterate members. Eventually, it sold over 4000 copies and brought literary fame to Godwin.
Godwin augmented the influence ofPolitical Justice with the publication of a novel that proved equally popular,Things as They Are; or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams. This tells the story of a servant who finds out a dark secret about Falkland, his aristocratic master, and is forced to flee because of his knowledge.Caleb Williams is essentially the first thriller:[74] Godwin wryly remarked that some readers were consuming in a night what took him over a year to write. Not the least of its merits is a portrait of the justice system of England and Wales at the time and a prescient picture of domestic espionage. His literary method, as he described it in the introduction to the novel, also proved influential: Godwin began with the conclusion of Caleb being chased through Britain, and developed the plot backwards. Dickens and Poe both commented on Godwin's ingenuity in doing this.
In response to atreason trial of some of his fellowBritish Jacobins, among themThomas Holcroft, Godwin wroteCursory Strictures on the Charge Delivered byLord Chief JusticeEyre to the Grand Jury, 2 October 1794 in which he forcefully argued that the prosecution's concept of "constructive treason" allowed a judge to construeany behaviour as treasonous. It paved the way for a major victory for the Jacobins, as they were acquitted.
However, Godwin's own reputation was eventually besmirched after 1798 by the conservative press, in part because he chose to write a candid biography of his late wife,Mary Wollstonecraft, entitledMemoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, including accounts of her two suicide attempts and her affair (before her relationship with Godwin) with the American adventurerGilbert Imlay, which resulted in the birth ofFanny Imlay.
Godwin, stubborn in his practice, practically lived in secret for 30 years because of his reputation. However, in its influence on writers such as Shelley, who read the work on multiple occasions between 1810 and 1820,[75] andKropotkin,Political Justice takes its place withMilton'sAreopagitica andRousseau'sÉmile as a defining anarchist andlibertarian text.
Bypolitical justice, the author meant "the adoption of any principle of morality and truth into the practice of a community," and the work was therefore an inquiry into the principles of society, government, andmorals. For many years Godwin had been "satisfied that monarchy was a species of government unavoidably corrupt," and from desiring a government of the simplest construction, he gradually came to consider that "government by its very nature counteracts the improvement of original mind," demonstratinganti-statist beliefs that would later be consideredanarchist.
Believing in the perfectibility of the human race, that there are no innate principles, and therefore no original propensity to evil, he considered that "our virtues and our vices may be traced to the incidents which make the history of our lives, and if these incidents could be divested of every improper tendency, vice would be extirpated from the world." All control of man by man was more or less intolerable, and the day would come when each man, doing what seems right in his own eyes, would also be doing what is in fact best for the community, because all will be guided by principles of pure reason.
Such optimism was combined with a strongempiricism to support Godwin's belief that the evil actions of men are solely reliant on the corrupting influence of social conditions, and that changing these conditions could remove the evil in man. This is similar to the ideas of his wife,Mary Wollstonecraft, concerning the shortcomings of women as due to discouragement during their upbringing.
Peter Kropotkin remarked of Godwin that when "speaking of property, he stated that the rights of every one 'to every substance capable of contributing to the benefit of a human being' must be regulated by justice alone: the substance must go 'to him who most wants it'. His conclusion was communism."[76]
In 1798,Thomas Robert Malthus wroteAn Essay on the Principle of Population in response to Godwin's views on the "perfectibility of society". Malthus wrote that populations are inclined to increase in times of plenty, and that only distress, from causes such as food shortages, disease, or war, serves to stem population growth. Populations in his view are therefore always doomed to grow until distress is felt, at least by the poorer segment of the society. Consequently, poverty was felt to be an inevitable phenomenon of society.
Let us imagine for a moment Mr. Godwin's beautiful system of equality realized in its utmost purity, and see how soon this difficulty might be expected to press under so perfect a form of society.... Let us suppose all the causes of misery and vice in this island removed. War and contention cease. Unwholesome trades and manufactories do not exist. Crowds no longer collect together in great and pestilent cities.... Every house is clean, airy, sufficiently roomy, and in a healthy situation.... And the necessary labours of agriculture are shared amicably among all. The number of persons, and the produce of the island, we suppose to be the same as at present. The spirit of benevolence, guided by impartial justice, will divide this produce among all the members of the society according to their wants....With these extraordinary encouragements to population, and every cause of depopulation, as we have supposed, removed, the numbers would necessarily increase faster than in any society that has ever yet been known....[77]
Malthus went on to argue that under such ideal conditions, the population could conceivably double every 25 years. However, the food supply could not continue doubling at this rate for even 50 years. The food supply would become inadequate for the growing population, and then:
...the mighty law of self-preservation expels all the softer and more exalted emotions of the soul.... The corn is plucked before it is ripe, or secreted in unfair proportions; and the whole black train of vices that belong to falsehood are immediately generated. Provisions no longer flow in for the support of the mother with a large family. The children are sickly from insufficient food.... No human institutions here existed, to the perverseness of which Mr. Godwin ascribes the original sin of the worst men. No opposition had been produced by them between public and private good. No monopoly had been created of those advantages which reason directs to be left in common. No man had been goaded to the breach of order by unjust laws. Benevolence had established her reign in all hearts: and yet in so short a period as within fifty years, violence, oppression, falsehood, misery, every hateful vice, and every form of distress, which degrade and sadden the present state of society, seem to have been generated by the most imperious circumstances, by laws inherent in the nature of man, and absolutely independent of it human regulations.[77]
InPolitical Justice Godwin had acknowledged that an increase in the standard of living as he envisioned could cause population pressures, but he saw an obvious solution to avoiding distress: "project a change in the structure of human action, if not of human nature, specifically the eclipsing of the desire for sex by the development of intellectual pleasures".[78] In the 1798 version of his essay, Malthus specifically rejected this possible change in human nature. In the second and subsequent editions, however, he wrote that widespreadmoral restraint, i.e., postponement of marriage and pre-nuptial celibacy (sexual abstinence), could reduce the tendency of a population to grow until distress was felt.[79]Godwin also saw new technology as being partly responsible for the future change in human nature into more intellectually developed beings. He reasoned that increasing technological advances would lead to a decrease in the amount of time individuals spent on production and labour, and thereby, to more time spent on developing "their intellectual and moral faculties".[78] Instead of population growing exponentially, Godwin believed that this moral improvement would outrun the growth of population. Godwin pictured a social utopia where society would reach a level of sustainability and engage in "voluntary communism".[78]
In July 1820, Godwin publishedOf Population: An Enquiry Concerning the Power of Increase in the Numbers of Mankind as a rebuttal to Malthus' essays. Godwin's main argument was against Malthus' notion that population tends to grow exponentially. Godwin believed that for population to double every twenty-five years (as Malthus had asserted had occurred in the United States, due to the expanse of resources available there), every married couple would have to have at least eight children, given the rate of childhood deaths. Godwin himself was one of thirteen children, but he did not observe the majority of couples in his day having eight children. He therefore concluded:
In reality, if I had not taken up the pen with the express purpose of confuting all the errors of Mr Malthus's book, and of endeavouring to introduce other principles, more cheering, more favourable to the best interests of mankind, and better prepared to resist the inroads of vice and misery, I might close my argument here, and lay down the pen with this brief remark, that, when this author shall have produced from any country, the United States of North America not excepted, a register of marriages and births, from which it shall appear that there are on an average eight births to a marriage, then, and not till then, can I have any just reason to admit his doctrine of the geometrical ratio.[78]
In his first edition ofPolitical Justice Godwin included arguments favouring the possibility of "earthly immortality" (what would now be calledphysical immortality), but later editions of the book omitted this topic. Although the belief in such a possibility is consistent with his philosophy regarding perfectibility and human progress, he probably dropped the subject because of political expedience when he realised that it might discredit his other views.[80]
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| Notes: Source:Tomalin, Claire (1992) [1980].Shelley and His World. Penguin. p. 115.ISBN 0140171525. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
"A woman I shudder to think of" (1814)
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Godwin, William".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 177–178.
