Even those who appear to history as the most successful have had their failures – let that be a comfort to us all.
William Godwin (1756-1836) is best remembered today as the husband of Mary Wollstonecraft and the father of Mary Shelley. At the height of his fame, though, he was a star in his own right: a novelist, a political philosopher, the founder of modern anarchism – and the inventor of the thriller. On the evening of the 13th December 1800, however, he was none of those things; he was just a laughing stock.
He was raised in East Anglia, the son of a dissenting minister who several times had to move parishes because of sectarian fallings-out amongst his fractious congregations. The family was often short of money. William’s childhood was spent in a stern religious atmosphere in which, for instance, cuddling his pet cat on a Sunday was cause for reprimand.
Godwin grew up intent on becoming a preacher like his dad. His calling did not last long; after a couple of years of the ministry he had become a deist, or possibly an atheist, and was fascinated by politics. From then on, he mostly earned his living as a writer – though for some years that living seems to have been more notional than actual, and he was no stranger to the pawnbroker’s shop.
Fame – and for a few years at least, financial stability – came in 1793, with the publication of Godwin’s response to the French Revolution, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and its Influence on Morals and Happiness, the first modern work to set out the ideas of anarchism. It sold well, and was highly influential, while also of course alerting the state to the fact this was a dangerous man propagating wicked ideas.
Things as they are; or, The adventures of Caleb Williams was published in 1794, and is still in print today. It’s sometimes described as the first chase thriller, or the first conspiracy thriller, or simply the first thriller. Godwin, who called the novel a “mighty trifle,” set out to write a fast-paced narrative which would almost force people to read on. He was after a particular effect, something unmistakeably original, that would nowadays be called “unputdownable.”
The book was a great success, even being adapted for the stage as a musical. Inevitably, Godwin’s enemies scoured the text for unacceptable political propaganda, and found it in spades. The author was condemned as “a fierce democrat, attacking every existing institution,” and his story was “evil” and “noxious.” (The stage version was given a new name, to get round censorship).
Quite suddenly, William Godwin was one of the most prominent, and popular, political thinkers in the country. He fell almost as quickly.
When his first wife, the feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft, died only a few months after their wedding in 1797, Godwin wrote a startlingly intimate memoir of her which, being true to her and his moral and political principles, was far too candid for the times, particularly concerning sexual matters. Widely seen as an attack on the institution of marriage and on conventional morality, Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman caused Godwin’s reputation and standing to tumble; it never recovered in his lifetime.
Grieving, out of favour, responsible for a baby daughter and a toddling step-daughter, and once again short of dosh, he tried something new: a tragedy, Antonio, which opened at Drury Lane on 13th December 1800. It was so despised – by critics, audiences, and its own cast – that for a while it became a byword for theatrical disaster.
Over the next few years, Godwin wrote a large number of children’s books, under a pseudonym - which did not fool the secret police. One agent’s report warns that his plain intention is to “supersede all other elementary books” so that “in time the principles of democracy” would become universally accepted. In other words, to brainwash a whole generation of innocent children into accepting extreme revolutionary doctrines. It was also suggested that Godwin was deliberately keeping the price of his books low, the cunning fiend, so as to target the impressionable lower orders.
He tried running a bookshop with his second wife, but the last 30 years of his life were spent in financial trouble and poor health, tragedy and farce (including his superfan and benefactor, Percy Bysshe Shelley, running off with both his daughters at once).
It’s all the more impressive and admirable, then, that during these final, troubled decades the old anarchist managed to produce some of his most significant writings. Right at the end of his life the government – perhaps in keeping with the great British tradition that all it takes for “the most dangerous man in the country” to become “a national treasure” is wrinkles and a stoop – gave him a sinecure, naming him Yeoman Usher of the Receipt of the Exchequer. The non-job came with a flat, so that he was at least able to spend his last three years in relative comfort.
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Sources:
A people’s history of classics by Hall & Stead (Routledge, 2020)
The life of crime by Martin Edwards (Collins, 2022)
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
https://lordbyron.org/monograph.php?doc=WiGodwi.1876&select=WGII3