- English political writer, considered one of the important precursors of utilitarian and liberal anarchist thought
- married Mary Wollstonecraft and had one daughter, Mary Shelley
Caleb Williams
- written as a call to end the abuse of power by what Godwin saw as a tyrannical government
- demonstrates how legal and other institution can and do destroy individuals, even when these individuals are innocent of crime
Preface:
The following narrative is intended to answer a purpose more general and important than immediately appears upon the face of it. The question now afloat in the world respecting THINGS AS THEY ARE, is the most interesting that can be presented to the human mind. While one party pleads for reformation and change, the other extols in the warmest terms the existing constitution of society. . . . It is but of late that the inestimable importance of political principles have been adequately apprehended. It is now known to philosophers that the spirit and character of government intrudes itself into every rank of society. But this is a truth highly worthy to be communicated to persons whom books of philosophy and science are never likely to reach. Accordingly it was proposed in the invention of the following work, to comprehend, as far as the progressive nature of a single story would allow, a general review of the modes of domestic and unrecorded despotism, by which man becomes the destroyer of man.
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