Abstract

This is a literary biography of the moral philosopher and anarchist William Godwin. Locke provides a detailed scenario of Godwin's dramatic life, from his celebrated rise with the publication of Political Justice, which struck his enthusiastic contemporaries as a revelation of individualism and perfectibility, to the ridicule and rejection he suffered when the reforming spirit of the age gave way to pessimism, a rejection made worse by his own political misjudgments and intellectual cautiousness and compromise. Locke catalogues Godwin's political sympathies and associations, and describes the personal relations of this peculiar disposition that caused the apostle of independence and virtue to be obsessed with the approval of others and perpetually dependent on friends for financial support.