William Godwin was one of the most popular novelists of the Romantic era; P.B. Shelley praised him, Byron drew heavily on his narrative style, and Mary Shelley, Godwin's daughter, dedicated Frankenstein to him.
Caleb Williams is the riveting account of a young man whose curiosity leads him to pry into a murder from the past. The first novel of crime and detection in English literature, Caleb Williams is also a powerful exposé of the evils and inequities of the political and social system in 1790s Britain.
In addition to the text itself, the editors have included an extensive selection of primary source materials from the period, ranging from Godwin's original manuscript ending and excerpts from his political writings to contemporary reviews, the political writings of Burke and Paine, and materials on criminals and the English prison system.
Acknowledgments
Introduction
William Godwin: A Brief Chronology
A Note on the Text
Preface to the 1794 Edition
Caleb Williams
Appendix A: The Composition of the Novel
The Original Manuscript Ending of the Novel
Godwin's Account of the Composition of the Novel fromthe Preface to the 1832 "Standard Novels" Edition ofFleetwood
Godwin's Account of the Novel's Aims, from the BritishCritic (July 1795)
Godwin's Essay, "Of History and Romance" (1797)
Appendix B: The Foundations of the Novel: Godwin's PoliticalPhilosophy and England in the 1790s
Select British Responses to the French Revolution
From Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France(1790)
From Thomas Paine, Rights of Man (1791)
From William Godwin, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice(1793)
From William Godwin, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice(1796)
From Godwin's Correspondence
Appendix C: Criminal Lives and the State of the Prisons
From the Account of Jack Sheppard, in The Malefactor'sRegister; or the Newgate Calendar (1779)
From John Howard, The State of the Prisons (1777)
Appendix D: Literary Influences: Crime and Pursuit Narratives and Scenes of Confrontation
From Mateo Alemán, Guzmán de Alfarache (1599)
From The History of Mile, de St. Phale (1691)
From Daniel Defoe, Colonel Jack (1722)
From Samuel Richardson, Pamela (1740-41)
From Thomas Holcroft, Anna St. Ives (1792)
Appendix E: The Influence of Caleb Williams
From George Colman, The Iron Chest (1796)
From Mary Wollstonecraft, The Wrongs of Woman: or, Maria (1798)
Appendix F: Contemporary Reviews
From the Critical Review (July 1794)
From the British Critic (July 1794)
From the British Critic (April 1795)
From the Monthly Review (September 1794)
From the Analytical Review (January 1795)
From James Mackintosh, Review of Godwin's "Lives ofEdward and John Philips," Edinburgh Review (October1815)
From William Hazlitt, The Spirit of the Age (1825)
Review of the 1831 edition of Caleb Williams, NewMonthly Magazine (May 1831)
Works Cited/Recommended Reading
