The Letters of William Godwin

Volume II: 1798-1805
Erscheinungsjahr 2014
ISBN: 978-0-19-956262-6
Verlag: Oxford University Press

Buch, Englisch, 472 Seiten, Format (B × H): 165 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 862 g

The first volume of William Godwin's letters reflected the origins and impact of his great philosophical work, An Enquiry concerning Political Justice, and showed him at the height of his influence and reputation. This second volume (1798-1805) reveals a less familiar person in different surroundings: a man still well-connected, attracting new friends and disciples, but increasingly embattled as a public intellectual, as a political radical, and as a
professional author. The volume includes scores of texts newly transcribed from the original manuscripts and given scholarly annotation for the first time. Godwin was not only a speculative philosopher but also a risk-taking entrepreneur. The letters show him responding to changes in public mood, seeking compromise
in his philosophical commitments, and remaking himself as the author of novels, plays, biographies, and children's books. They trace the fragmentation of his intellectual circle of the 1790s and the building of new alliances. They include an eye-witness account of the condition of Ireland on the eve of the 1800 Act of Union. They follow his quest, in the wake of the death of his first wife Mary Wollstonecraft, to find a new life-companion and mother for his two young children. Godwin's letters
reflect the cultural history of his times, and throw light on many other literary, political, and artistic figures. They record irreplaceable losses, both public and private, and trace new beginnings in his intellectual and literary development, in his commercial ventures, and in his social and
domestic life.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Clemit, Pamela

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Theorie, Politische Philosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturgeschichte und Literaturkritik
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Sozialphilosophie, Politische Philosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Europäische Länder

Über Autor(innen)

Pamela Clemit is Professor of English at Queen Mary University of London and a Supernumerary Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford. Her other books include The Godwinian Novel (1993), also published by Oxford University Press. She has published a dozen or so scholarly and critical editions of William Godwin's and Mary Shelley's writings, including an Oxford World's Classics edition of Caleb Williams (2009) and The Letters of William Godwin, Volume
I: 1778-1797 (2011). She has been a visiting research fellow at the New York Public Library, at All Souls College, Oxford, and at Wadham College, Oxford. In 2016 she was awarded the Keats-Shelley Association of America Distinguished Scholar Award.