William Godwin: A biographical study

The almost universal neglect of William Godwin has led to the creation of a completely distorted picture of both his character and his works. He has become known less for his won writings than for his connection with contemporary men and women. He is the husband of Mary Wollstonecraft, the father or Mary Shelley and father-in-law of Percy Shelley, the friend of Coleridge, an amusing character in the essays of Hazlitt and Lamb, and an unpleasant one in the diaries of Crabb Robinson. Unfortunately, his teachings against political parties and other collective activities made him unsympathetic to the majority of socialists and reformers and lesser men acquired a much greater influence in the socialist movement. John Stuart Mill, H.T. Bucke and Herbert Spencer, who went so far in the same direction as Godwin, made no recognition of the value of his thought. Even the anarchists, whose ideas were nearest to Godwin's, gave him little acknowledgement, and chose as their prophets Proudhon, Ba