Abstract
This chapter shows how William Godwin combined historical and novelistic approaches to challenge the conventions of children’s life writing and produce biographies for children that reflect his political and educational commitments. It places The Looking-Glass (1805) and the Life of Lady Jane Grey (1806), both published under the pseudonym of Theophilus Marcliffe, in the context of the Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1798) and the Life of Chaucer (1803). In so doing, this chapter demonstrates that these children’s biographies exemplify Godwin’s attempt to create a youth culture of radical reform, facilitating historical learning, illustrating the operations of ‘Godwinian’ benevolence, and thus pressing on his pedagogical and political agendas.
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Notes
- 1.
See the marked increase in the publication of biographical writings in Table 1.1 in Michael Suarez, ‘Towards a Bibliometric Analysis of the Surviving Record, 1701–1800’, in The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain. Volume 5: 1695–1830, ed. by Michael F. Suarez SJ and Michael L. Turner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 37–65, (p. 46).
- 2.
Robert Bisset, ‘A Biographical Sketch of the Authors of the Spectator’ in The Spectator. A New Edition in Eight Volumes with Illustrative Notes to which are Prefixed the Lives of the Authors, ed. by Robert Bisset, 8 vols (London: G. Robertson, J. Cuthell, J. Lackington, 1793), I, p. vii; Samuel Johnson, ‘The Dignity and Usefulness of Biography’ in Samuel Johnson, The Rambler, 6 vols (London: J. Payne and J. Bouquet, 1752), II, 207–215 (p. 211).
- 3.
Mark Salber Phillips, Society and Sentiment: Genres of Historical Writing in Britain, 1740–1820 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), pp. 111–33.
- 4.
Julian North, The Domestication of Genius: Biography and the Romantic Poet (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 15–25; Philip Hicks, ‘Female Worthies and the Genres of Women’s History’, in Historical Writing in Britain, 1688–1830: Visions of History, ed. by Ben Dew and Fiona Price (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), pp. 18–33; For a striking example of this, see: Mary Pilkington, A Mirror for the Female Sex. Historical Beauties for Young Ladies, 2nd edn (London: Vernor and Hood, 1799) and especially Mary Pilkington’s introduction to the work. For a broader view on women’s life writing, see: Amy Culley, British Women’s Life Writing, 1760–1840: Friendship, Community, and Collaboration (Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).
- 5.
Notable exceptions include: Pamela Clemit and Gina Luria Walker, ‘Introduction’, in Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, ed. by Pamela Clemit and Gina Luria Walker (Peterborough, Ont: Broadview Press, 2001), pp. 11–36; chapter 2 in April London, Literary History Writing, 1770–1820 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010); Tilottama Rajan, ‘Uncertain Futures: History and Genealogy in William Godwin’s The Lives of Edward and John Philips, Nephews and Pupils of Milton’, Milton Quarterly, 32.3 (1998), 75–86; Rowland Weston, ‘William Godwin and the Puritan Legacy’, Nineteenth-Century Prose, 39.1–2 (2012), 411–42; Paul M. Clogan, ‘Literary Criticism in William Godwin’s Life of Chaucer in Medieval Hagiography and Romance’, Medievalia et Humanistica, 1975, 189–198.
- 6.
William Godwin, Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (London: J. Johnson and G. G. and J. Robinson, 1798). The Memoirs can also be found in William Godwin, Collected Novels and Memoirs of William Godwin, gen. ed. Mark Philp, 8 vols (London: Pickering and Chatto, 1992), I: Autobiography, Autobiographical Fragments and Reflections, Godwin/Shelley Correspondence, Memoirs, ed. Mark Philp, pp. 85–141. Henceforth all references will be to the Philp edition of the Memoirs.
- 7.
Clemit and Walker, pp. 14–24.
- 8.
Clemit and Walker, p. 22.
- 9.
Theophilus Marcliffe [William Godwin], The Looking-Glass: A True History of the Early Years of an Artist (London: Thomas Hodgkins, 1805), p. 3, hereafter referred to in text as TLG followed by the page number.
- 10.
Godwin, Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, p. 87.
- 11.
Godwin, Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, p. 87.
- 12.
William Godwin, Life of Geoffrey Chaucer, the Early English Poet: Including Memoirs of His Near Friend and Kinsman, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster: With Sketches of the Manners, Opinions, Arts and Literature of England in the Fourteenth Century, 2 vols (London: Richard Phillips, 1803). William Godwin, Lives of Edward and John Philips: Nephews and Pupils of Milton. Including Various Particulars of the Literary and Political History of Their Times (Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1815).
- 13.
Godwin, Life of Chaucer, I, p. 35.
- 14.
London, p. 45; On the Lives of Edward and John Philips see also: Rajan.
- 15.
On this point, see also: North, pp. 108–9.
- 16.
See the changes made to An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice in William Godwin, Political and Philosophical Writings of William Godwin, gen. ed. Mark Philp, 7 vols (London: Pickering and Chatto, 1993), IV: An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice: Variants, ed. Mark Philp, pp. 16–28. On Godwin’s lives in relation to history, see also: Pamela Clemit, The Godwinian Novel: The Rational Fictions of Godwin, Brockden Brown, Mary Shelley (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), pp. 81–4.
- 17.
Theophilus Marcliffe [William Godwin], Life of Lady Jane Grey, and of Lord Guildford Dudley Her Husband (London: Thomas Hodgkins, 1806), p. iv (emphasis in the original). Hereafter referred to in text as JG followed by the page number.
- 18.
Anonymous, The Juvenile Plutarch, 2nd edn, 2 vols (London: Tabart and Co., 1806); Mary Pilkington, A Mirror for the Female Sex. Historical Beauties for Young Ladies, 2nd edn (London: Vernor and Hood, 1799); Mary Hays, Female Biography: Or, Memoirs of Illustrious and Celebrated Women, of All Ages and Countries. Alphabetically Arranged, 4 vols (London: Richard Phillips, 1803); Mary Pilkington, Memoirs of Celebrated Female Characters , Who Have Distinguished Themselves by Their Talents and Virtues in Every Age and Nation; Containing the Most Extensive Collection of Illustrious Examples of Feminine Excellence Ever Published; in Which the Virtuous and the Vicious Are Painted in Their True Colours (London: Albion Press, 1804).
- 19.
See for example: David Hume, The History of Great Britain, Under the House of Tudor, 2nd edn, 2 vols (London: A. Millar, 1759), I, pp. 342, 349; Elizabeth Helme, The History of England Related in Familiar Conversations, by a Father to His Children: Interspersed with Moral and Instructive Remarks, and Observations on the Most Leading and Interesting Subjects, 2 vols (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1804), II, pp. 45–46, 49–52; Oliver Goldsmith, An History of England in a Series of Letters from a Nobleman to His Son, 2 vols (London: T. Carnan, 1786), I, pp. 267–69, 272. See also Godwin’s own: Edward Baldwin [William Godwin], The History of England. For the Use of Schools and Young Persons (London: Thomas Hodgkins, 1806), p. 117.
- 20.
The 1801 catalogue of Benjamin Tabart’s popular children’s bookshop lists only one individual biography in the texts directed at readers younger than fifteen, Benjamin Tabart, A Catalogue of Books, for the Amusement and Instruction of Youth and for the Use of Schools, Systematically Arranged (London: B. Tabart, Juvenile & School Library, 1801). A search through Andrea Immel’s helpful index to Sarah Trimmer’s reviewing in the Guardian of Education shows us a similar scarcity of individual historical biographies for the use of young children, Andrea Immel and Mitzi Myers, Revolutionary Reviewing : Sarah Trimmer’s Guardian of Education and the Cultural Politics of Juvenile Literature : An Index to the Guardian (Los Angeles: Dept. of Special Collections, University Research Library, University of California Los Angeles, 1990).
- 21.
Mary Pilkington, A Mirror for the Female Sex. Historical Beauties for Young Ladies, 2nd edn (London: Vernor and Hood, 1799), pp. xvii, xxii, xxiv. Hereafter referred to in text as MFS followed by the page number.
- 22.
Anonymous, The Juvenile Plutarch, 2nd edn, 2 vols (London: Tabart and Co., 1806), I, p. 45. A presentation of her scholarly accomplishments takes the better part of the next two pages. Hereafter referred to in text as JP followed by the volume and page number.
- 23.
Susan Manly makes a similar point but takes it in a slightly different direction in ‘William Godwin’s “School of Morality”’, The Wordsworth Circle, 43.3 (2012), 135–42 (pp. 140–41).
- 24.
Mark Philp, Godwin’s Political Justice (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1986), p. 175; William Godwin, Fleetwood; or, The New Man of Feeling, in Collected Novels and Memoirs of William Godwin, gen. ed. Mark Philp, 8 vols (London: Pickering and Chatto, 1993), V, Fleetwood, ed. Pamela Clemit, p. 14.
- 25.
For Godwin’s view on marriage and the problem of private judgement , in a slightly different key to this discussion, see: William Godwin, An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice in Political and Philosophical Writings of William Godwin, gen. ed. Mark Philp, 7 vols (London: Pickering and Chatto, 1993), III: An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, ed. Mark Philp, p. 453 (for the 1793 edition), and IV, p. 337 (for the 1796 and 1798 variants). See also Philp, p. 182.
- 26.
My emphasis. Note also the intersection of gendered expectations and religion here.
- 27.
Anonymous, The History of Goody Two-Shoes; Otherwise Called Mrs. Margery Two-Shoes (London: John Newbery, 1765); Anonymous [Thomas Day], ‘The History of Little Jack’ in Anonymous, The Children’s Miscellany, pp. 1–57 (London: John Stockdale, 1788).
- 28.
Isaac Kramnick, Republicanism and Bourgeois Radicalism: Political Ideology in Late Eighteenth-Century England and America (Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell University Press, 1990), p. 100.
- 29.
On this, see for example: Julie Ann Carlson, England’s First Family of Writers: Mary Wollstonecraft, William Godwin, Mary Shelley (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007), p. 244.
- 30.
Carlson, p. 242. On the ideological use of orphans, see Kramnick, p. 113. For Godwin’s descriptions of the help Mulready’s parents gave their child, see: TLG pp. 45, 48–9, 62–4, 74–5, 117.
- 31.
These were most likely James Heath and William Sharp, both of whom are listed in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Given the evidence in Godwin’s diary, it is quite likely that Godwin knew James Heath through their mutual connection with the bookseller George Robinson. Godwin records meeting a ‘Heath’ with Robinson on 24 March 1789. He definitely knew William Sharp and records meeting him several times from 20 October 1792 until Sharp’s death on 30 July 1824 (Godwin records his death). William Godwin, The Diary of William Godwin, ed. Victoria Myers, David O’Shaughnessy and Mark Philp (Oxford: Oxford Digital Library, 2010). http://godwindiary.bodleian.ox.ac.uk.
- 32.
Thomas Banks was also an acquaintance of Godwin’s. The sculptor moved in radical circles and especially John Horne Tooke’s. Godwin records meeting him at least once per year from 20 January 1793 to 27 September 1802, and he sees him again on 28 March and 23 September 1804 (Godwin, Diary).
- 33.
Godwin, Political Justice, III, p. 53.
- 34.
In a twist of irony, I had to put the ‘not’ between square brackets: there was a printing mistake in the first edition of The Looking-Glass , whereby the passage said ‘there is one bad man’ instead of what I quote. Godwin indicates this at the end of the book, as he lists the errata (TLG 118). I should be thankful to the printer, R. Wilks, from Chancery Lane: the oddity of this sentence given the mistake was the reason it stood out as I was reading the text.
- 35.
William Godwin, ‘Of History and Romance’, Political and Philosophical Writings of William Godwin, gen. ed. Mark Philp, 7 vols (London: Pickering and Chatto, 1993), V: Educational and Literary Writings, ed. Pamela Clemit, pp. 290–301 (p. 301).
- 36.
William Godwin, ‘Of History and Romance’, p. 293.
- 37.
Phillips, p. 143; Godwin, ‘Of History and Romance’, pp. 293–4.
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Anonymous [Thomas Day], ‘The History of Little Jack’ in The Children’s Miscellany (London: John Stockdale, 1788), pp. 1–57.
Anonymous, The Juvenile Plutarch, 2nd ed, 2 vols (London: Tabart and Co., 1806).
Baldwin, Edward [William Godwin], The History of England. For the Use of Schools and Young Persons (London: Thomas Hodgkins, 1806).
Bisset, Robert, ‘A Biographical Sketch of the Authors of the Spectator’ in The Spectator. A New Edition in Eight Volumes with Illustrative Notes to which are Prefixed the Lives of the Authors, ed. Robert Bisset, 8 vols (London: G. Robertson, J. Cuthell, J. Lackington, 1793).
Carlson, Julie A., England’s First Family of Writers: Mary Wollstonecraft, William Godwin, Mary Shelley (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007).
Clemit, Pamela, The Godwinian Novel: The Rational Fictions of Godwin, Brockden Brown, Mary Shelley (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993).
Clemit, Pamela, and Gina Luria Walker, ‘Introduction’, in Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, ed. Pamela Clemit and Gina Luria Walker (Peterborough, Ont: Broadview Press, 2001).
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Hansson, JE. (2021). Through the Looking-Glasses: Godwin’s Biographies for Children. In: O'Brien, E., Stark, H., Turner, B. (eds) New Approaches to William Godwin. Palgrave Studies in the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Cultures of Print. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62912-0_4
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