William Godwin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Godwin

William Godwin (3 March 1756 – 7 April 1836) was a British journalist, political philosopher and novelist. He is considered one of the first exponents of utilitarianism, and the first modern proponent of anarchism. 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, and Things as They Are; or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams, which attacks aristocratic privilege, but also is virtually the first mystery novel. Based on the success of both, Godwin featured prominently in the radical circles of London in the 1790s. In the ensuing conservative reaction to British radicalism, Godwin was attacked, in part because of his marriage to the pioneering feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft in 1797 and his candid biography of her after her death; their child, Mary Godwin (later Mary Shelley) would go on to author Frankenstein and marry the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Godwin wrote prolifically in the genres of novels, history and demography throughout his lifetime. With his second wife, Mary Jane Clairmont, he wrote children's primers on Biblical and classical history, which he published along with such works as Charles and Mary Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare. Using the pseudonym Edward Baldwin, he wrote a variety of books for children, including a version of Jack and the Beanstalk. He also has had considerable influence on British literature and literary culture.

Legacy and memorials

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, to his 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 the Victoria and Albert Museum. The V&A's manuscripts for Political Justice and Caleb Williams were both digitised in 2017 and are now included in the Shelley-Godwin Archive.

His birthplace, Wisbech, has two memorials to him. A cul-de-sac was named in his honour Godwin Close, and a wall plaque adorns a building adjacent to the Angles Theatre in Alexandra Road.