Collected Novels and Memoirs of William Godwin

This is a collection in eight volumes of the novels and memoirs of William Godwin, one of the foremost philosophers and radical thinkers of his age. There is a general introduction covering Godwin's life and literary works and each volume is prefaced by a scholarly introduction. His monumental work on government and individual freedom, "Political Justice", made him the chief philosophical exponent of English radicalism. Both his novels and his philosophical works were a major influence on Thomas Holcroft, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and others in the radical movement of the 1790s, and on William Hazlitt, Percy Bysshe Shelley and others in early 19th century literary circles. "Caleb Williams", "St Leon" and "Fleetwood" in particular, were widely-read and influential novels when first published.