Lives of the Great Romantics, Part III:

Godwin, Wollstonecraft & Mary Shelley by their Contemporaries

---

Series Editor: John Mullan
Volume Editors: Pamela Clemit, Harriet Devine Jump and Betty T Bennett

Lives of the Great Romantics

This edition, the third in our Lives of the Great Romantics series, sheds light on contemporary perceptions of the most biographically and intellectually compelling literary family of the Romantic period.

The collected writings reveal not only the personalities of the subjects, but also the motives and agendas of the individual biographers. In volume 1, the memoirs depict the character of the philosopher and novelist William Godwin as inseparable from the character of his work. In volume 2, a fascinating picture of the vicissitudes of Wollstonecraft's reputation throughout the nineteenth century is displayed. Shortly after her death she is vilified and abused by commentators, but gradually a new 'sanitised' image emerges, her `coarseness' is overlooked, and the emphasis shifts to her gentleness and sensitivity, combined with strength of mind.

Both volumes 1 and 2 include extracts from Mary Shelley's previously unpublished 'Life of William Godwin' in the Abinger Collection, transcribed specially for this edition. Due to Sir Timothy's prohibition that Mary Shelley bring the Shelley name to public attention, and because the growing conservatism of the era often caused Mary Shelley to be shunned by 'good society', little was written of her during her life time.

Many of the later passages in this collection, however, reveal truths about Mary Shelley's character and work much known but never previously written about.

Contents

Volume 1
William Godwin
Extracts from: Elizabeth Hamilton, Translation of the Letters of a Hindoo Rajah (1796); Mary Hays, Memoirs of Emma Courtney (1796); [John Fenwick], 'Mr Godwin', Public Characters of 1799-1800 (1801); William Austin, Letters from London: Written during the Years 1802 to 1803 (1804); William Dunlap, Memoirs of George Frederick Cooke, Esq. Late of the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden (1813); William Hazlitt, Lectures on the English Comic Writers: Delivered at the Surrey Institution (1819); [G F Deane], 'Living Authors, No 3', The London Magazine (1820); [Thomas Talfourd], 'The Living Novelists: Godwin' New Monthly Magazine (1820); Sir George Steuart Mackenzie, Illustrations of Phrenology, with Engravings (1820); Charles Lamb, 'The Old Actors', London Magazine (1822); William Hazlitt, The Spirit of the Age; `William Godwin' (1825); and Conversations of James Northcote (1830); Mary Shelley, 'Memoirs of William Godwin' prefixed to Caleb Williams, Bentley's Standard Novels (1831); [Signed `R'], 'On the Writings and Character of Godwin', The Tatler (1831); [William Maginn]; 'Gallery of Literary Characters, No. LIII: William Godwin, Esq.', Fraser's Magazine (1834); Joseph Gerrald, The Trial of Joseph Gerrald before the High Court ... at Edinburgh, on the 13th and 14th March, 1794 ... with an Original Memoir and Notes (1835); Sir Walter Scott, Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott (1837-8); Thomas De Quincey, 'Autobiography of an English Opium-Eater: Literary Connexions or Acquaintances', Tait's Edinburgh Magazine (1837) and `Notes on Gilfillan's Gallery of Literary Portraits - William Godwin', Tait's Edinburgh Magazine (1845); Horace Smith, `A Graybeard's Gossip about his Literary Acquaintance', New Monthly Magazine (1848); Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd, Final Memorials of Charles Lamb... (1848); Harriet Martineau, The History of England during the Thirty Years' Peace: 1816-1846 (1849); Cecilia Lucy Brightwell, Memorials of Amelia Opie (1854); John Binns, Recollections of the Life of John Binns: Twenty-Nine Years in Europe and Fifty-Three in the United States (1854); Thomas Jefferson Hogg, The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1858); Lady Jane Shelley, Shelley Memorials (1859); Cyrus Redding, Yesterday and To-day (1863); Henry Crabb Robinson, Diary, Reminiscences and Correspondence of Henry Crabb Robinson (1869); Robert Dale Owen, Threading My Way (1874); Lucy Aikin and Anna Laetitia Le Breton (eds), The Correspondence of William Ellery Channing and Lucy Aikin (1874); George Ticknor, Life, Letters and Journal of George Ticknor (1876); Harriet Martineau, Autobiography (1877); Paul C Kegan, William Godwin: His Friends and Contemporaries (1876); John Edward Trelawny, Records of Shelley, Byron, and the Author (1878); James A Froude, Thomas Carlyle: A History of the First Forty Years of his Life 1795-1835 (1882); Robert Blakey, Memoirs of Dr Robert Blakey (1889); Graham Wallas, The Life of Francis Place (1898); Aaron Burr, The Private Journals of Aaron Burr (1903); Charles MacFarlane, Reminiscences of a Literary Life (1917); Maria Gisborne, Maria Gisborne and Edward Williams: Shelley's Friends: Their Journal and Letters (1951)

Volume 2
Mary Wollstonecraft
Extracts from: [Anon], 'Obituary of Wollstonecraft', Gentleman's Magazine (1797); [Mary Hays] 'Obituary of Wollstonecraft', Monthly Magazine (1797); [Joseph Johnson] 'A Few Facts', Letter to William Godwin from I B Johnson of Derby (1767); William Godwin, Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1798); [Robert Bisset] 'Review of Godwin's Memoirs' Anti-Jacobin, (1798); 'Mary Wollstonecraft', Monthly Visitor (1798); 'Mary Wollstonecraft', European Magazine (1798); 'Review of Wollstonecraft's Posthumous Works`, British Critic (1798); 'Review of Godwin's Memoirs' , Monthly Mirror (1798); 'Review of Godwin's Memoirs', Analytical Review (1798); Richard Polwhele, The Unsex'd Females (1798); T J Mathias, The Shade of Alexander Pope (1799); [Mary Hays], 'Mary Wollstonecraft', Annual Necrology for 1797-8 (1800); 'Review of Mary Wollstonecraft Annual Necrology', Anti Jacobin (1800); [C K], 'The Vision of Liberty', Anti Jacobin (1801); Anon., A Defence of Conduct of the Character and Conduct of the late Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (1803); Anna Seward, 'Letter to H Repton 13 April 1798', Letters of Anna Seward Written Between the Years 1784 and 1807 (1811); Allan Cunningham, 'Life of Fuseli' in Lives of the Most Eminent British Painters (1829-33); John Knowles, The Life and Writings of Henry Fuseli (1831); Mary Shelley, unpublished Memoir of Godwin (1836-40); Archibald Hamilton Rowan, Autobiography (1840); Anne Elwood, Memoirs of Literary Ladies of England (1843); George Eliot, 'Margaret Fuller and Mary Wollstonecraft', Leader (1855); Charles Kegan Paul, William Godwin, his Friends and Contemporaries (1876); Harriet Martineau, Autobiography (1877); Charles Kegan Paul, 'Mary Wollstonecraft: A Vindication', Fraser's Magazine (1878); Mathilde Blind, `Mary Wollstonecraft', New Quarterly Magazine (1878); Margaret Oliphant, The Literary History of England ... (1882); Robert Browning, `Mary Wollstonecraft and Fuseli', Jocoseria (1883); Elizabeth Robins Pennell, Mary Wollstonecraft (1885); Emma Rauschenbugh Clough, A Study of Mary Wollstonecraft and the Rights of Woman (1898)

Volume 3
Mary Shelley
Extracts from: William Godwin, 'Letter re: MWS' (1812); Percy Bysshe Shelley, 'Letter to Thomas Jefferson Hogg', The Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1814); Dr John William Polidori, The Diary of ... (1816); Sir Walter Scott, 'Review of Frankenstein', Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine (1832); Percy Bysshe Shelley, 'Review of Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus', The Athenaeum (1818); Betty T Bennett and William T Little, 'Seven Letters from Prosper Mérimée to Mary Shelley', Prosper Mérimée, `Letters to MWS', Comparative Literature (1979); Maria Jane Jewsbury, 'Letter to Anna Jameson', Anna Jameson: Letters and Friendships (1830); Claire Clairmont, 'Letters to MWS', The Clairemont Correspondence (1995); Letters, Conversations and Recollections of S T Coleridge (1836);'Review of Falkner', Monthly Repository (1837); Aaron Burr, The Private Journal of Aaron Burr (1838); Charles Sumner, Memoirs and Letters of Charles Sumner (1838); 'Review of MWS's edition of PBS's Poetical Works & Essays, Letters from Abroad', The Athenaeum (1839); Richard Henley Horne, A New Spirit of the Age (1844); Thomas Medwin, The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1847); George Gilfillan, 'Female Authors', Tait's Edinburgh Magazine (1847); Thomas Jefferson Hogg, The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1858); Edward Trelawny, Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron (1858); Cyrus Redding, Fifty Years' Recollections (1858); Lady Shelley, Shelley Memorials (1859); Eliza Rennie, 'Mrs Percy Bysshe Shelley', Traits of Character. By a Contemporary (1860); Thornton Hunt, 'Shelley By One Who Knew Him', The Atlantic Monthly (1863); Robert Dale Owen Jr., 'Frances Wright, General Lafayette and Mary Wollstonecraft', Threading My Way (1874); Charles Cowden Clarke and Mary Cowden Clarke, Recollections of Writers (1878); William Godwin, 'Letter re. MWS', Mrs Julian Marshall's edition of Life and Letters of Mary Shelley (1889); A C Haden, 'Mary Shelley: A Local Reminiscence', Dundee Advertiser (1897); Jane Gray Perkins, 'Letters to Mary Wollstonecraft in biography', The Life of Mrs Norton (1909)

Reviews

'essential library purchases'
– Emma Mason, Year's Work in English Studies

Related titles

• Mary Shelley's Literary Lives and Other Writings
• Romantic Women Writers Reviewed
• The Collected Novels and Memoirs of William Godwin
• The Novels and Selected Works of Mary Shelley
• The Political and Philosophical Writings of William Godwin
• The Selected Works of Margaret Oliphant
• The Works of Mary Wollstonecraft

Return to top