This collection showcases work on William Godwin (1756-1836) foregrounding new critical approaches and uncovering new texts. Godwin is a familiar presence in scholarship on the Shelley-Godwin circle and on Dissenting intellectual circles, but the present collection considers him closely as an author and thinker on his own terms. The range of texts and topics covered by this collection will be of interest both to scholars familiar with Godwin and those approaching his work for the first time.

An impressive and well-crafted essay collection that will be of real interest to Godwin scholars at a time when he remains a prominent figure within Romantic debates. - Paul Keen, is Professor of English at Carleton University, Canada, and author of A Defence of the Humanities in a Utilitarian Age (2020). This collection showcases work on William Godwin (1756-1836) foregrounding new critical approaches and uncovering new texts. Godwin is a familiar presence in scholarship on the Shelley-Godwin circle and on Dissenting intellectual circles, but the present collection considers him closely as an author and thinker on his own terms. The range of texts and topics covered by this collection will be of interest both to scholars familiar with Godwin and those approaching his work for the first time. .

This comprehensive study of Godwin's philosophy establishes the central importance of his ideas to modern social and political thought, correcting in the process certain widespread misinterpretations. Professor Clark reassesses Godwin's determinism, his doctrine of perfectibility, his utilitarianism, his theory of rights, his view of political action, and other important topics. The book begins with a discussion of the metaphysical and epistemological bases of Godwin's philosophy and then analyzes the nature of his ethical theory and the application of his philosophical principles to social and political issues. In a concluding section, his place in the history of anarchist theory is clarified. The author draws on all of Godwin's writings, including both strictly philosophical works and literary and historical essays, taking an approach to them that is expository, analytical, and critical. Originally published in 1977. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

William Godwin is one of the most important figures of the Romantic period. He wrote four plays at the end of the 18th/beginning of the 19th centuries. This book has two main objectives: to provide the first comprehensive discussion of these four plays, and to consider the notion of theatricality in relation to Godwin’s political project.

William Godwin’s Mandeville was described as his best novel by Percy Shelley, who sent a copy to Lord Byron, and it was immediately recognized by its other admirers as a work of unique power. Written one year after the battle of Waterloo and set in an earlier revolutionary period between the execution of Charles I and the Restoration, Mandeville is a novel of psychological warfare. The narrative begins with Mandeville’s rescue from the traumatic aftermath of the Ulster Rebellion of 1641 and proceeds through his early education by a fanatical Presbyterian minister to his persecution at Winchester school, his constant (and not unjustified) paranoia, and his confinement in an asylum. Mandeville’s final, desperate attempt to prevent his sister’s marriage to his enemy ends with his disfiguration, which also defaces endings based on settlement or reconciliation. The novel’s events have many resonances with Godwin’s own period. The historical appendices offer contemporary reviews, including Shelley’s letter to Godwin praising Mandeville, material explaining the novel’s complex historical background, and contemporary writings on war, madness, and trauma.

"In association with the UCLA Center for Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Studies and the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library."