The Letters of William Godwin: Volume 3

威廉·戈德温(1756-1836)是十八世纪末十九世纪初的主要公共知识分子之一，他是杰出的哲学家、小说家、戏剧家、历史学家、教育家、传记作家和出版商。他最著名的作品《关于政治正义的调查》(1793)和小说《凯勒·威廉姆斯》(1794)对社会和政治思想以及英国小说的发展产生了革命性的影响。后来和不太著名的著作--甚至他的谈话和通信--也在其他许多领域产生了巨大的影响。他是儿童文学的先驱作家、出版商和理论家；他与他那个时代的许多主要文学人物进行了创造性的对话，特别是柯勒律治、哈兹利特和后来成为他女婿的珀西·雪莱。戈德温的信件集现在第一次由牛津大学出版社出版，出版了享有盛誉的权威六卷本。第三卷将收录戈德温在1806年至1815年间写的所有信件：大约338封。在传记方面，这本书将涵盖戈德温与他的第二任妻子兼商业伙伴玛丽·简·克莱蒙特结婚的早期。这是一个经济困难的时期，尤其是因为戈德温有五个年幼的孩子要养活(包括他的第一任妻子玛丽·沃尔斯通克拉夫特的两个女儿，以及玛丽·简以前关系中的两个孩子)，而且在1805年，戈德温和他的妻子创立了青少年图书馆，这是儿童出版业的一项开创性事业。最早的儿童书籍一直在那里出版--查尔斯·兰姆和玛丽·兰姆的《莎士比亚故事》(1807)。儿童文学的其他里程碑也是如此，包括实验性漫画图画书《红心女王》(1805)和《瑞士家庭鲁滨逊》(1814)。戈德温本人写了《古代和现代的寓言》(1805)和《万神殿，或希腊和罗马诸神的古代历史》(1806)。连同他的《圣经故事》(1802)，这些书代表了儿童传统阅读材料的完全重新包装，根据戈德温理性但引人注目的现代教育思想进行了修订。他的书信记录了戈德温教育思想的发展，但也难得地揭示了那个时期出版的后勤问题。这些信件揭示了这项业务的细枝末节，对于出版史学者来说非常重要，尤其是对儿童文学作为印刷文化的一个独立部门的发展感兴趣的人。第三卷末尾的信件追溯了戈德温家族的内爆。戈德温于1812年开始与他的准弟子雪莱通信，进一步阐述了他的政治思想，并试图缓和雪莱的激进主义。1814年，雪莱和戈德温的女儿玛丽(后来是《科学怪人》的作者)私奔了。戈德温的继女简(克莱尔)克莱蒙特后来成为拜伦勋爵的情人，和他们一起去了。到1816年，另一个继女范妮自杀了，雪莱的第一任妻子也自杀了，雪莱和玛丽结婚了，戈德温也因此与他和解。戈德温的信件将向我们展示许多事情：关于出版、教育、社交、赞助、知识和文化生活以及浪漫主义时代的人际关系。它们表明，他仍然处于一个复杂且不断变化的网络的中心，这个网络由许多在英国和海外工作的最重要的作家、艺术家和思想家组成。他的书信蕴含着新的思想，经常成为知识分子争论的场所，也是个人争议的焦点。它们表明，在17世纪90年代对戈德温的广泛攻击之后，他对政治和社会改革的承诺绝不会消失。对于从事广泛研究的众多研究人员来说，这些信件将是一个值得注意的来源。

William Godwin (1756-1836) was one of the leading public intellectuals of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries: among many other things, a prominent philosopher, novelist, dramatist, historian, educationalist, biographer and publisher. His most famous works - 'An Enquiry concerning Political Justice' (1793) and the novel 'Caleb Williams' (1794) - had a transformative effect on social and political thought and on the development of English fiction. Later and less celebrated writings - and indeed his conversation and correspondence - were enormously influential in a number of other spheres too. He was a pioneering author, publisher and theorist of children's literature; and he engaged in creative dialogue with many of the principal literary figures of his age, notably Coleridge, Hazlitt and the man who would become his son-in-law, Percy Shelley.Godwin's collected letters are for the first time now being published, by Oxford University Press, in a prestigious and authoritative six-volume edition. Volume III will include all the letters Godwin wrote between 1806 and 1815: approximately 338. In biographical terms, the volume will cover the early years of Godwin's marriage to Mary Jane Clairmont, his second wife and business partner. This was a period of financial difficulty, especially since Godwin had a family of five young children to support (including the two daughters of his first wife, Mary Wollstonecraft, and two of Mary Jane's children from previous relationships), and in 1805 Godwin and his wife founded the 'Juvenile Library', a ground-breaking venture in children's publishing. The earliest children's book that has remained continuously in print was published there - Charles and Mary Lamb's 'Tales from Shakespear' (1807). So too were other landmarks of children's literature, including an experimental comic picture-book 'The Queen of Hearts' (1805), and 'The Swiss Family Robinson' (1814). Godwin himself wrote 'Fables Ancient and Modern' (1805) and 'The Pantheon, or Ancient History of the Gods of Greece and Rome' (1806). Taken together with his 'Bible Stories' (1802), these represent a complete repackaging of children's traditional reading materials, revised according to Godwin's rational but strikingly modern pedagogical ideas. His letters document the development of Godwin's educational thinking, but also shed rare light on the logistics of publishing in the period. Revealing the minutiae of the business, the letters will be hugely important for scholars of publishing history, and most especially for those interested in the development of children's literature as an independent sector of print culture.Letters towards the end of Volume III trace the implosion of Godwin's family. Godwin began corresponding with his would-be disciple Shelley in 1812, further expounding his political ideas and seeking to moderate Shelley's radicalism. In 1814, Shelley eloped with Godwin's daughter Mary (later author of 'Frankenstein'). Godwin's stepdaughter Jane (Claire) Clairmont, later to be Lord Byron's lover, went with them. By 1816, another stepdaughter, Fanny, had committed suicide, as had Shelley's first wife, allowing Shelley and Mary to marry, and thus Godwin's reconciliation with him.Godwin's letters will show us many things: about publishing, education, sociability, patronage, intellectual and cultural life and personal relationships in the Romantic-era. They demonstrate that he remained at the centre of a complex and ever-changing network of many of the most important writers, artists and thinkers working both in Britain and abroad. His letters engage with new ideas and are often the site of intellectual argument, as well as personal controversies. They demonstrate that Godwin's commitment to political and social reform was by no means extinguished after the widespread attacks on him in the 1790s. The letters will be a remarkable source for a great many researchers working on a huge range of subjects.