SOURCE: Graham, Kenneth W. “‘Domestic and Unrecorded Despotism’: The Politics of Caleb Williams.” In The Politics of Narrative: Ideology and Social Change in William Godwin's Caleb Williams, pp. 13-48. New York: AMS Press, 1990.

In the following excerpt, Graham discusses Godwin's treatment of class and gender inequalities in Caleb Williams, maintaining that the novel is a product of Godwin's most radical period.

Radicalism

Caleb Williams and Political Justice represent Godwin during his most radical period. Soon after their publication Godwin was to be a helpless witness at the death of Mary Wollstonecraft and, a little later, he was to see his ideas and his marriage held up to ridicule and his supporters desert him. Works written after such experiences continue to exhibit his philosophical rigor and creative powers, as well as his extraordinary industry, but they lack the fire and audacity of the publications of 1792-95 that attacked the...