Things as They Are (Volume 1); Or, the Adventures of Caleb Williams

by William Godwin

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: despaired of being able to introduce into them any essential and leading improvements; he respected the indulgence they have experienced from the public too much, to feel inclined lightly to change what that public had received with favour; and various avocations and demands upon his thoughts and attention, some of them not altogether pleasant have indisposed him from allowing himself in that degree of luxury, which might have been his seducer in a more commodious fortune. January 1, 1816, 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. If the author shall have taught a valuable lesson, without subtracting from the interest and passion by which a performance of this sort ought to becharacterised, he will have reason to congratulate himself upon the vehicle he has chosen. May 12, 1794. This Preface was withdrawn in the original edition, in compliance with the alarms of booksellers. Caleb Williams made his first appearance in the world, in the same month in which the sanguinary plot broke out against the liberties of Englishmen, which was happily terminated by the acquittal of its first intended victims, in the close of that year. Terror was the order of the day; and it was feared that even the humble novelist, might be shewn to be constructively a traitor. October 29, 1795. ADVENTURES CALEB WILLIAMS. CHAP. I. JVlY life has for several years been a theatre of calamity. I have been a mark for the vigilance ..

78 pages, Paperback

First published January 9, 2010

About the author

William Godwin was the son and grandson of strait-laced Calvinist ministers. Strictly-raised, he followed in paternal footsteps, becoming a minister by age 22. His reading of atheist d'Holbach and others caused him to lose both his belief in the doctrine of eternal damnation, and his ministerial position. Through further reading, Godwin gradually became godless. He promoted anarchism (but not anarchy). His Political Justice and The Enquirer (1793) argued for morality without religion, causing a scandal. He followed that philosophical book with a trail-blazing fictional adventure-detective story, Caleb Williams (1794), to introduce readers to his ideas in a popular format. Godwin, a leading thinker and author ranking in his day close to Thomas Paine, was enormously influential among famous peers.

He and Mary Wollstonecraft, author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, secretly married in 1797. She died tragically after giving birth to daughter Mary in 1797. Godwin's loving but candid biography of his wife, Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1798), further scandalized society. Godwin, caring not only for the baby Mary, but her half-sister Fanny, remarried. He and his second wife opened a bookshop for children. Godwin, out of necessity, became a proficient author of children's books, employing a pseudonym due to his notoriety. His daughter Mary, at 16, famously ran off with poet Percy Shelley, whose Necessity of Atheism was influenced by Godwin. Mary's novel Frankenstein also paid homage to her father's views. Godwin's life was marked by poverty and further domestic tragedies. Godwin's prized manuscript attacked the Christian religion and was intended to free the mind from slavery. The Genius of Christianity Unveiled: in a Series of Essays was published only many years after his death.

Reviews

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ending in a cliff hanger! 😯 Is someone murdered?! About to find out in the next volume!