WILLIAM GODWIN
THE ADVENTURES OF CALEB WILLIAMS OR THINGS AS THEY ARE
CONTENTS
Preface
Godwin's Account of the Novel
Volume One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
----------------------PREFACE
The following narrative is intended to answer a purpose, more general and
important than immediately appears upon the face of it. The question now afloat
in the world respecting THINGS AS THEY ARE, is the most interesting that can be
presented to the human mind. While one party pleads for reformation and change,
the other extols, m the warmest terms, the existing constitution of society. It
seemed as if something would be gained for the decision of this question, if
that constitution were faithfully developed in its practical effects. What is
now presented to the public, is no refined and abstract speculation; it is a
study and delineation of things passing in the moral world. It is but of late
that the inestimable importance of political principles has been adequately
apprehended. It is now known to philosophers, that the spirit and character of
the government intrudes itself into every rank of society. But this is a truth,
highly worthy to be communicated, to persons, whom books of philosophy and
science ar e never likely to reach. Accordingly it was proposed, in the
invention of the following work, to comprehend, as far as the progressive nature
of a single story would allow, a general review of the modes of domestic and
unrecorded despotism, by which man becomes the destroyer of man. If the author
shall have taught a valuable lesson, without subtracting from the interest and
passion, by which a performance of this sort ought to be characterized, he will
have reason to congratulate himself upon the vehicle he has chosen.
May 12, 1794.
This preface was withdrawn in the original edition, in compliance with the
alarms of booksellers. Caleb Williams made his first appearance in the world, in
the same month in which the sanguinary plot broke out against the liberties of Englishmen, which was happily terminated, by the acquittal of its first intended victims, in the close of the year. Terror was the order of the day; and it was feared that even the humble novelist might be shown to be constructively a traitor.
October 29, 1795
ADVERTISEMENT OF 1831
This novel was first published in May, 1794, thirty-seven years ago, "in
the same month in which the sanguinary plot broke out against the liberties of
Englishmen, which was happily terminated by the acquittal of its first intended
victims [Thomas Hardy, John Horne Tooke, Thomas Holcroft, &c.], in the close of
that year." (See above, 1795 Preface). Every friend of the true interests of
mankind will rejoice with the author, that the prospects of the cause of liberty
and sound thinking have so greatly improved since that period.
April, 1831.
WILLIAM GODWIN
GODWIN'S OWN ACCOUNT OF CALEB WILLIAMS
As written for insertion in the edition of FLEETWOOD when that novel was
reprinted in Bentley's "Standard Novels' as No. XXII (1832)
London, November 20, 1832
CALEB WILLIAMS has always been regarded by the public with an unusual degree
of favour. The proprietor of "THE STANDARD NOVELS" has therefore imagined, that
even an account of the concoction and mode of writing the work would be viewed
with some interest.
I had always felt in myself some vocation towards the composition of a
narrative of fictitious adventure; and among the things of obscure note, which I
have above referred to, were two or three pieces of this nature. It is not
therefore extraordinary that some project of the sort should have suggested
itself on the present occasion [after the publication of Political Justice]
I formed a conception of a book of fictitious adventure, that should in some
way be distinguished by a very powerful interest. Pursuing this idea, I invented
first the third volume of my tale, then the second, and last of all the first. I
bent myself to the conception of a series of adventures of flight and pursuit;
the fugitive in perpetual apprehension of being overwhelmed with the worst
calamities, and the pursuer, by his ingenuity and resources, keeping prevailed
upon by the extreme importunity of an old and intimate friend to allow him the
perusal of my manuscript. On the second day he returned it with a note to this
purpose: "I return you your manuscript, because I promised to do so. If I had
obeyed the impulse of my own mind, I should have thrust it in the fire. If you
persist, the book will infallibly prove the grave of your literary fame."
I doubtless felt no implicit deference for the judgment of my friendly
critic. Yet it cost me at least two days of deep anxiety, before I recovered the
shock. Let the reader picture to himself my situation. I felt no implicit
deference for the judgment of my friendly critic. But it was all I had for it.
This was my first experiment of an unbiased decision. It stood in the place of
all the world to me. I could not, and I did not feel disposed to, appeal any
further. If I had, how could I tell that the second and third judgment would be
more favourable than the first? Then what would have been the result? No; I had
nothing for it but to wrap myself in my own integrity. By dint of resolution I
became invulnerable. I resolved to go on to the end, trusting as I could to my
own anticipations of the whole, and bidding the world wait its time, before it
should be admitted to the consult.
I began my narrative, as is the more usual way, in the third person. But I
speedily became dissatisfied. I then assumed the first person, making the hero
of my tale his own historian; and in this mode I have persisted in all my
subsequent attempts at works of fiction. It was infinitely the best adapted, at
least, to my vein of delineation, where the thing in which my imagination
reveled the most freely, was the analysis of the private and internal operations
of the mind, employing my metaphysical dissecting knife in tracing and laying
bare the involutions of motive, and recording the gradually accumulating
impulses, which led the personages I had to describe primarily to adopt the
particular way of proceeding in which they afterwards embarked.
-
When I had determined on the main purpose of my story, it was ever my
method to get about me any productions of former authors that seemed to bear on
my subject. I never entertained the fear, that in this way of proceedimg I
should be in danger of servilely copying my predecessors. I imagined that I had
a vein of thinking that was properly my own, which would always preserve me from
plagiarism. I read other authors, that I might see what they had done, or more
properly, that I might forcibly hold my mind and occupy my thoughts in a
particular train, I and my predecessors traveling in some sense to the same
goal, at the same time that I struck out a path of my own, without ultimately
heeding the direction they pursued, and disdaining to inquire whether by any
chance it for a few steps coincided or did not coincide with mine.
Thus, in the instance of "Caleb Williams," I read over a little old book,
entitled "The Adventures of Mademoiselle de St. Phale," a French Protestant in
the times of the fiercest persecution of the Huguenots, who fled through France
in the utmost terror, in the midst of eternal alarms and hair-breadth escapes,
having her quarters perpetually beaten up, and by scarcely any chance finding a
moment's interval of security. I turned over the pages of a tremendous
compilation entitled "God's Revenge against Murder," where the beam of the eye
of Omniscience was represented as perpetually pursuing the guilty, and laying
open the most hidden retreats to the light of day. I was extremely conversant
with the "Newgate Calendar," and the "Lives of the Pirates." In the mean time no
works of fiction came amiss to me, provided they were written with energy. The
authors were still employed upon the same mine as myself, however different was
the vein they pursued: we were all of us engaged in exploring the entrails of
mind and motive, and in tracing the various reencounter and clashes that may
occur between man and man in the diversified scene of human life.
I rather amused myself with tracing a certain similitude between the story
of Caleb Williams and the tale of Blue Beard, than derived any hints from that
admirable specimen of the terrific. Falkland was my Blue Beard, who had
perpetrated atrocious crimes, which if discovered, he might expect to have all
the world roused to revenge against him. Caleb Williams was the wife, who in
spite of warning, persisted in his attempts ...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Go to the beginning of the document
Go to previous page
Go to next page
Go to the end of document
