William Godwin
George Woodcock

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 own writings than for his connection with contemporary men and women. He is the husband of Mary Wollstonecraft, the father-in-law of 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 acknowledgment, and chose as their prophets Proudhon, Bakunin, Tolstoy and Kropotkin, whose leading ideas had already been outlined in Godwin’s Political Justice, published February, 1793.

Woodcock’s study of Godwin is timely. An increasing number of people are turning away in disillusionment from the dreary world created by authoritarian or State socialism to discover that there is another and more revolutionary concept of political governing- still largely untried- that of libertarian socialism. Godwin was the first prophet of this social philosophy, and in the years that lie immediately ahead, his name and his message will be reanimated.

"As the inspiring intelligence behind the humanist attitudes of the English Romantic poets and Utopian societies…his spiritual anarchism is still a relevant concept.”
-Vancouver Sun

“The book is brilliant…interesting reading even if you know nothing about Godwin.”
- Ottawa Citizen

About the Author

George Woodcock is one of Canada’s most distinguished men of letters- journalist, poet, and author of more than forty books.

Table of Contents

• Introduction by George Woodcock
• Foreword by Herbert Read
• 1. The Early Years- 1756-1783
• 2. Years of Preparation- 1784-1793
• 3. “Political Justice”- 1793
• 4. Years of Fame- 1793-1797
• 5. Years of Calumny- 1798-1801
• 6. Years of Patience- 1801-1836
• 7. The Reckoning With Time

BIOGRAPHY 266 pages, index

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