Bøker av William Godwin

William Godwin (1756-1836) states in his preface: "The main purpose of this book is to exhibit a fair delineation of the credulity of the human mind. Such an exhibition cannot fail to be productive of the most salutary lessons."Contents:IntroductionAmbitious Nature of ManExamples of Necromancy and Witchcraft from The BibleGreeceRomeRevolution Produced in the History of Necromancy and Witchcraft Upon the Establishment of ChristianityHistory of Necromancy in the EastDark Ages of EuropeCommunication of Europe and the SaracensRevival of LettersSanguinary Proceedings Against WitchcraftConclusion

One of the great polemics and the key founding anarchist text, Godwin's Enquiry is his major work of political philosophy.Enquiry Concerning Political Justice established William Godwin as the chief exponent of British radicalism, in the tradition of the French Revolution. In it, he criticizes the 'brute engine' of government for systematizing oppression of individual liberty in the name of law and order, and calls for the abolition of all forms of rule and for the institution of an anarchist society based on the principles of simplicity, sincerity and equality. His book influenced everyone from Shelley and Coleridge (who revered him) to Thomas Malthus (who wrote his Essay on the Principle of Population in outraged response to him). The book's ideas would later echo through the writings of thinkers as diverse as Proudhon, Kropotkin, Marx and Thoreau, and it remains one of the great polemics of political literature.William Godwin, the famous philosopher and novelist, was born in East Anglia in 1756. The son of a Presbyterian minister, he was educated to follow in his father's footsteps, but subsequently lost his faith in God. He then devoted himself to writing, expounding his enlightenment and anarchist ideals in novels and essays. In 1797 he married Mary Wollstonecraft, the famous feminist; their daughter would grow up to be Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. Godwin died in 1836. Isaac Kramnick is the Richard J. Schwartz Professor of Government at Cornell where he has taught since 1972. He has written or edited some twenty books among which his Bolingbroke and His Circle: The Politics of Nostalgia in the Age of Walpole won the Conference of British Studies Prize for best book on British politics.

William Godwin's Mandeville was described as his best novel by Percy Shelley, who sent a copy to Lord Byron, and it was immediately recognized by its other admirers as a work of unique power. Written one year after the battle of Waterloo and set in an earlier revolutionary period between the execution of Charles I and the Restoration, Mandeville is a novel of psychological warfare. The narrative begins with Mandeville's rescue from the traumatic aftermath of the Ulster Rebellion of 1641 and proceeds through his early education by a fanatical Presbyterian minister to his persecution at Winchester school, his constant (and not unjustified) paranoia, and his confinement in an asylum. Mandeville's final, desperate attempt to prevent his sister's marriage to his enemy ends with his disfiguration, which also defaces endings based on settlement or reconciliation. The novel's events have many resonances with Godwin's own period. The historical appendices offer contemporary reviews, including Shelley's letter to Godwin praising Mandeville, material explaining the novel's complex historical background, and contemporary writings on war, madness, and trauma.

Godwin's Political Justice is the founding work of philosophical anarchism. Drawing on the principles of liberty and utility Godwin criticizes government and all forms of secular and religious authority, advocating the free exercise of individual judgement. He raises enduring questions about the nature of our duty to others.

Set in Europe during the Protestant Reformation and first published in 1799, St. Leon tells the story of an impoverished aristocrat who obtains the philosopher's stone and the elixir of immortality. In this philosophical fable, endless riches and immortal life prove to be curses rather than gifts and transform St. Leon into an outcast. William Godwin's second full-length novel explores the predicament of a would-be philanthropist whose attempts to benefit humanity are frustrated by superstition and ignorance. This Broadview edition includes a critical introduction and full annotation. The appendices include contemporary reviews of the novel; Godwin's writings on immortality, the domestic affections, and alchemy; and selections from works influenced by St. Leon, most notably Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

The political philosopher and writer William Godwin (1756-1836), who was also the husband of writer Mary Wollstonecraft and father of Mary Shelley, was known for his philosophical works and novels. In this work, originally published in 1834, Godwin turns to the issue of the supernatural, and to some of the famous - and sometimes unexpected - people associated with it. He begins by defining some magic practices, such as divination, astrology, and necromancy, giving examples of the latter from the Bible. The remainder of the work consists of brief sketches of people and places involved in the occult world, beginning in the Ancient Middle East and Greece, surveying the Christian era in Europe, and ending with the New England witch trials. In a remarkable work of synthesis, he discusses apparently supernatural episodes in the lives of many historical figures, from Socrates and Virgil to Joan of Arc and James I.

Caleb Williams is a psychological thriller and suspenseful tale of detection and pursuit. It is also a powerful political novel, inspired by the events following the French Revolution. This new edition reprints the original novel of 1794, the grittier, topical text that reflects Godwin's political philosophy.

Caleb Williams is the riveting account of a young man whose curiosity leads him to pry into a murder from the past. The first novel of crime and detection in English literature, Caleb Williams is also a powerful expose of the evils and inequities of the political and social system in 1790s Britain.

When honest young Caleb Williams comes to work as a secretary for Squire Falkland, he soon begins to suspect that his new master is hiding a terrible secret. But as he digs deeper into Falkland's past and finally unearths the guilty truth, the results of his curiosity prove calamitous when - even though Caleb has loyally sworn never to disclose what he has discovered - the Squire enacts a cruel revenge. A tale of gripping suspense and psychological power, William Godwin's novel creates a searing depiction of the intolerable persecution meted out to a good man in pursuit of justice and equality. Written to expose the political oppression and corrupt hierarchies its author saw in the world around him, Caleb Williams (1794) makes a radical call to end the tyrannical misuses of power.