SOURCE: Thompson, James. “Surveillance in William Godwin's Caleb Williams.” In Gothic Fictions: Prohibition/Transgression, edited by Kenneth W. Graham, pp. 173-98. New York: AMS Press, 1989.

In the following essay, Thompson discusses Godwin's novel within the historical context of England in the 1790s.

A functioning police state needs no police.

William Burroughs

There is a wealth of documentary evidence surrounding the composition and intention of William Godwin's Caleb Williams, or Things as They Are. We have several of Godwin's own statements from different stages of his life about the composition of the text, his own theoretical work from the same period, his Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, along with abundant evidence of his political engagement at this time. However, if we take Godwin's own statements too literally, or if we try to systematize these various texts into one whole vision, such an abundance of material can lead us into obvious...