GODWIN AND MARY: LETTERS OF WILLIAM GODWIN AND MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT.
Edited by RalphM. Wardle '3l. Lawrence, Kansas: TheUniversity of Kansas Press, 1966. 125 pp.$4.00.
Both William Godwin (1756-1836) and Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) were avid social reformers. His Enquiry ConcerningPolitical Justice shocked contemporaries with its espousal of anarchism, a position he deduced from his theory that human nature was naturally good, and in his novel Caleb Williams he gave popular expression to his moral theories and his criticisms of existing society. For her part, Mary was the authoress of a pro-revolutionary reply to Burke, A Vindication of the Rights of Men, as well as of the feminist Vindication of theRights of Women.
They were reformers with a vengeance, but there their resemblances end. Godwin was aloof, impassive, theoretical, and prided himself upon his "rational" conduct; his whole demeanor reflected the puritanism of his upbringing. Mary was passionate and impulsive, and her existence before she became Godwin's wife in 1797 had been a turbulent and bohemian one. She had fallen in love with the artist Henry Fuseli, already married, and had gone so far as to beg Fuseli's wife to admit her to the household as a member of the family, only to be crushingly rebuffed; whereupon she had gone off to France, hoping to soothe her feelings with the balm of Revolution. In Paris she became the mistress of a dashing American, Gilbert Imlay, bore him a daughter, was deserted by him, and twice attempted suicide. A temperament less like Godwin's can scarcely be imagined.
Nevertheless, as frequenters of English radical circles they grew to know one another and eventually married—though Godwin had previously denounced marriage on "philosophical" grounds. As might be expected, there was a good deal of oddity about the marriage. They tended to live separate lives, to have separate circles of friends; much of the communication between them was by letter; Godwin spent his days thinking and writing in rooms he rented in the neighborhood. Yet it is out of their very differentness, from each other, and indeed from people generally, that the drama of these letters arises, for they reflect in mood and in style the intense, individualistic personalities of their authors.
Professor Wardle has provided a splendid edition of these 151 letters between Godwin and Mary from the years 1796-7, covering their courtship and marriage, and ending shortly before her early death. Professor Wardle's notes to the text provide all the information necessary to a full understanding of the letters, his introduction is a model of the genre, and the publishers have done their part in producing a most attractive volume.
Associate Professor of English
