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William Godwin was a philosopher, an educationalist, a moralist, a biographer, a historian, a novelist, and a dramatist. His versatility led William Hazlitt to describe him in Lectures on the English Comic Writers (1819) as "a sort of phenomenon in the history of letters." Yet Godwin's modern reputation rests on only two works, both of the period following the French Revolution of 1789: An Enquiry concerning Political Justice, and its Influence on General Virtue and Happiness (1793), his treatise of philosophical anarchism, and Things As They Are; or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams (1794), a suspense narrative in which the author extends the critique of political institutions begun in his treatise. However, Godwin's progressive political theories were not the result of a sudden enthusiasm for the French Revolution. His work was shaped by, and contributes to, long-standing British traditions of moral and political thought of a reformist temper. His writings of the 1780s show that many of his fundamental beliefs were developed well before the publication of An Enquiry concerning Political Injustice, while after the mid 1790s he continued to develop and modify his philosophical views in essays, in biographies, and, above all, in fiction.
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