Introduction to William Godwin

SERIES TITLE
Judgement and Justice: The Life and Diary of William Godwin

The first part in this series gives a biography of the writer William Godwin, exploring his background and the key points from his life.

Experts from Oxford University discuss the life and times of William Godwin (1756-1836), philosophical anarchist, novelist and intellectual.

William Godwin kept a diary from 1788 until a few weeks before his death. The diary has recently been transcribed and edited and is available on the web at: http://godwindiary.bodleian.ox.ac.uk. It offers a hugely detailed if deeply cryptic window on Godwins literary life, his familial life (as the lover and then husband of Mary Wollstonecraft and the father of Mary Shelley), and his connections into an extraordinary range of literary, political, artistic and theatrical networks over nearly fifty years.


William Godwin kept a diary from 1788 until a few weeks before his death. The diary has recently been transcribed and edited and is available on the web at: http://godwindiary.bodleian.ox.ac.uk. It offers a hugely detailed if deeply cryptic window on Godwins literary life, his familial life (as the lover and then husband of Mary Wollstonecraft and the father of Mary Shelley), and his connections into an extraordinary range of literary, political, artistic and theatrical networks over nearly fifty years.