"'I have received from [Basil] Montagu, Godwyn's second edition,' reports W[ordsworth] on 21 March 1796: 'I expect to find the work much improved. I cannot say that I have been encouraged in this hope by the perusal of the second preface, which is all I have yet looked into.'"
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth Print: Book
Mary Lamb to Mrs Morgan and Charlotte Brant, 22 May 1815:
'Godwin has just published a new book ... Wordsworth has just now looked into it and found these words "All modern poetry is nothing but the old, genuine poetry , new [vam]ped, and delivered to us at second, or twentieth hand." In great wrath he took a pencil and wrote in the margin "That is false, William Godwin. Signed William Wordsworth."'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth Print: Book
I was finally induced to come to this determination sooner than I should otherwise have done by reading Mr Godwins 'Enquiry concerning Political Justice'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis Place Print: Book
'Poor Godwin is a terrific example for all conjugal biography; but he has marked that path which may be avoided? The title of Mrs Owens? new work has something very charming in it: ?Ida of Athens? ? I have not yet been able to read any of her novels. I am now reading Leo the X, by Rescoe. War, religion, laws and elevated mankind are my delight, for among them I increase my love for politics of the present day, and find that our great enemy is less wicked than most heroes and politicians have been, and at the same time a vast deal wiser than them all.'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Inchbald Print: Book
" ... a large part of the manuscript for William Godwin's play Abbas, with Coleridge's commentary dating from 1801, has recently come to light ... there he ... adopted a set of symbols for common problems, 'false or intolerable English' ... 'common-place book Language,' and 'bad metre.'"
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Manuscript: Unknown
H. J. Jackson discusses John Horseman's annotations to, and insertions in, his first edition copy of William Godwin, Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1798) -- "For forty years or more, Horseman made this little volume an object of devoted attention and the repository of everything he considered relevant in his reading."
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Horseman Print: Book
"Benjamin Dockray ... acquired a copy of Godwin's Memoirs [of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman] secondhand in 1860 and settled down to read it for the first time. His ownership inscription is dated 16 August 1860. He was a methodical reader who recorded on the first page the date at which he began reading (18 August) and on the last page ... the date of finishing (24 September) ... Dockray's routine [pencilled] annotation includes plentiful underlining, setting-off of passages with lines and exclamation marks, small stylistic corrections, and [internal and external] cross-references ... [discussion continues]"
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Benjamin Dockray Print: Book
'she read some new novels, though not often with approval: she disliked the politics of Caleb Williams.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Frances Burney Print: Book
'On the next day (Saturday 9th) I went to Canterbury in the diligence, during w'ch I amused myself with reading part of Voltaire's "Candide", w'ch having read a great many years ago at Salisbury & almost forgot, I bought the day before in duodecimo. Having dined at the King's Head I went out & got "Caleb Williams" of w'ch I had heard much & of w'ch I read great part of the 1st vol. in the evening at the King's Head (where I also supp'd & slept) leaving the 2d. vol of "Candide" to read on my return to London.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: John Marsh Print: Book
'...immediately afterwards went in the diligence to Margate during which I finished the eccentric performance of "Caleb Williams".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: John Marsh Print: Book
'He [Shelley] reads part of "Caleb Williams" to us.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'[T]he few men who are about me are all eager to get yr books but what has vexd me is that the 2 children & 4 young Women to whom I endeavoured to read them did not chuse to attend'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Caroline Lamb Print: Book
'Mary reads Political Justice all the morning'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
Mary Berry, in letter of 2 January 1800: 'I have been reading [...] a new novel of Godwin's, in four vols., called "The Travels of St. Leon." it is an odd work, like all his, and, like all his, interesting, tho' hardly ever pleasantly so; and while one's head often agrees with his observations, and sometimes with his reasoning, never does one's heart thoroughly agree with his sentiments on any subject or in any character [...] I should tell you, which I know from Edwards, that it was written for bread, agreed for by the booksellers beforehand, and actually composed and written as the printers wanted it. I think you will see many marks of this throughout the work if you read it, which I should recommend to you, if, like me, you have not seen a [italics]readable[end italics] novel this age.'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Berry Print: Book
'Finish Caleb Williams - read to Jane.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Print: Book
'Read a part of St Leon'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Print: Book
'Go to the tomb and read the essay on sepulchres there - Shelley is out all the morning at the Lawyers but nothing is done - read Voltaire's tales'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'[Wiliam Godwin] told me [Harriet Martineau] [...] that he wrote the first half of "Caleb William" in three months, and then stopped for six, -- finishing it in three more. This pause in the middle of a work so intense seems to me a remarkable incident. I have often intended to read "Caleb Williams" again, to try whether I could find the stopping place: but it has never fallen in my way, and I have not seen the book since my youth.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau Print: Book
[Marginalia]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
'Brought Mrs Wolstonecraft's "Letters from Norway" [etc.] Mr Godwin in his "Life of Mrs W." speaks very highly of it.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Hunter Print: Book
'Looked over Godwin's "Memoirs of Mrs. Woolstonecraft"; which strikingly evince that love, even in a modern philosopher, "emollit mores, nec sinet esse feros"...'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Green Print: Book
'Read Godwin's "St. Leon". In the Preface, he explicitly abjures the doctrine of extinguishing the private affections, which he had inculcated in his Political Justice...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Green Print: Book
"I attempt to read a book which attacks my most cherished sentiments as calmly as one which corroborates them. I have not read your writings slightly, I have daily occasion to recur to them, but it has been twenty years since 'Political Justice' was written, and have men ceased to fight, has vice and misery wasted away? No, therefore modification is required."
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'I have read since I saw you Burke's works, some books of Homer, Suetonius, a great deal of agricultural reading, Godwin's "Enquirer", and a great deal of Adam Smith. As I have scarcely looked at a book for five years, I am rather hungry'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sydney Smith Print: Book
'read talk and nurse - S reads the life of Chauser'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'S finishes the life of Chauser'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'[italics to indicate Shelley's hand] S. has read the life of Chaucer - Ochley's History of the Saracens. Mad. du Stael sur la litteratur - to page 113. of the third Vol. of Livy. [end italics]'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
[Mary Shelley's Reading List for 1815. Only those titles not mentioned in journal entries are given separate database entries. xs denote books also read by Percy Shelley]
'Posthumous Works. 3.
Sorrows of Werter
Don Roderick - by Southey
Gibbons Decline & fall.
x Paradise Regained
x Gibbons Life and Letters - 1st edition 2
x Lara
New Arabian Nights 3
Corinna
Fall of the Jesuits
Rinaldo Rinaldini
Fo[n]tenelle's Plurality of the Worlds
Hermsprong
Le diable boiteux
Man as he is.
Rokeby.
Ovid's Meamo[r]phoses in Latin
x Wordsworth's Poems
x Spenser's Fairy Queen
x Life of the Philipps
x Fox's History of James IIThe Reflector
Wieland.
Fleetwood
Don Carlos
x Peter Wilkins
Rousseau's Confessions.
x Espriella's Letters from England
Lenora - a poem
Emile
x Milton's Paradise Lost
X Life of Lady Hamilton
De l'Alemagne - by Made de Stael
3 vols. of Barruel
x Caliph Vathek
Nouvelle Heloise
x Kotzebue's account of his banishment to Siberia.
Waverly
Clarissa Harlowe
Robertson's Hist. of america
x Virgil
xTale of Tub.
x Milton's speech on Unlicensed printing
x Curse of Kehama
x Madoc
La Bible Expliquee
Lives of Abelard and Heloise
The New Testament
Coleridge's Poems.
1st vol. Syteme de la Nature
x Castle of Indolence
Chattertons Poems.
x Paradise Regained
Don Carlos.
x Lycidas.
x St Leon
Shakespeare's Play. Part of which Shelley reads aloud
Burkes account of civil society
x Excursion
Pope's Homer's Illiad
x Sallust
Micromegas
x Life of Chauser
Canterbury Tales
Peruvian letters.
Voyages round the World
Pluarch's lives.
x 2 vols of Gibbon
Ormond
Hugh Trevor
x Labaume's Hist. of the Russian War
Lewis's tales
Castle of Udolpho
Guy Mannering
Charles XII by Voltaire
Tales of the East'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
[Mary Shelley's Reading List for 1815. Only those titles not mentioned in journal entries are given separate database entries. xs denote books also read by Percy Shelley]
'Posthumous Works. 3.
Sorrows of Werter
Don Roderick - by Southey
Gibbons Decline & fall.
x Paradise Regained
x Gibbons Life and Letters - 1st edition 2
x Lara
New Arabian Nights 3
Corinna
Fall of the Jesuits
Rinaldo Rinaldini
Fo[n]tenelle's Plurality of the Worlds
Hermsprong
Le diable boiteux
Man as he is.
Rokeby.
Ovid's Meamo[r]phoses in Latin
x Wordsworth's Poems
x Spenser's Fairy Queen
x Life of the Philipps
x Fox's History of James IIThe Reflector
Wieland.
Fleetwood
Don Carlos
x Peter Wilkins
Rousseau's Confessions.
x Espriella's Letters from England
Lenora - a poem
Emile
x Milton's Paradise Lost
X Life of Lady Hamilton
De l'Alemagne - by Made de Stael
3 vols. of Barruel
x Caliph Vathek
Nouvelle Heloise
x Kotzebue's account of his banishment to Siberia.
Waverly
Clarissa Harlowe
Robertson's Hist. of america
x Virgil
xTale of Tub.
x Milton's speech on Unlicensed printing
x Curse of Kehama
x Madoc
La Bible Expliquee
Lives of Abelard and Heloise
The New Testament
Coleridge's Poems.
1st vol. Syteme de la Nature
x Castle of Indolence
Chattertons Poems.
x Paradise Regained
Don Carlos.
x Lycidas.
x St Leon
Shakespeare's Play. Part of which Shelley reads aloud
Burkes account of civil society
x Excursion
Pope's Homer's Illiad
x Sallust
Micromegas
x Life of Chauser
Canterbury Tales
Peruvian letters.
Voyages round the World
Pluarch's lives.
x 2 vols of Gibbon
Ormond
Hugh Trevor
x Labaume's Hist. of the Russian War
Lewis's tales
Castle of Udolpho
Guy Mannering
Charles XII by Voltaire
Tales of the East'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
[Mary Shelley's Reading List for 1815. Only those titles not mentioned in journal entries are given separate database entries. xs denote books also read by Percy Shelley - again, only those not mentioned in journal entries are indicated separately in the database]
'Posthumous Works. 3.
Sorrows of Werter
Don Roderick - by Southey
Gibbons Decline & fall.
x Paradise Regained
x Gibbons Life and Letters - 1st edition 2
x Lara
New Arabian Nights 3
Corinna
Fall of the Jesuits
Rinaldo Rinaldini
Fo[n]tenelle's Plurality of the Worlds
Hermsprong
Le diable boiteux
Man as he is.
Rokeby.
Ovid's Metamo[r]phoses in Latin
x Wordsworth's Poems
x Spenser's Fairy Queen
x Life of the Philipps
x Fox's History of James II
The Reflector
Wieland.
Fleetwood
Don Carlos
x Peter Wilkins
Rousseau's Confessions.
x Espriella's Letters from England
Lenora - a poem
Emile
x Milton's Paradise Lost
X Life of Lady Hamilton
De l'Alemagne - by Made de Stael
3 vols. of Barruel
x Caliph Vathek
Nouvelle Heloise
x Kotzebue's account of his banishment to Siberia.
Waverly
Clarissa Harlowe
Robertson's Hist. of america
x Virgil
xTale of Tub.
x Milton's speech on Unlicensed printing
x Curse of Kehama
x Madoc
La Bible Expliquee
Lives of Abelard and Heloise
The New Testament
Coleridge's Poems.
1st vol. Syteme de la Nature
x Castle of Indolence
Chattertons Poems.
x Paradise Regained
Don Carlos.
x Lycidas.
x St Leon
Shakespeare's Play. Part of which Shelley reads aloud
Burkes account of civil society
x Excursion
Pope's Homer's Illiad
x Sallust
Micromegas
x Life of Chauser
Canterbury Tales
Peruvian letters.
Voyages round the World
Pluarch's lives.
x 2 vols of Gibbon
Ormond
Hugh Trevor
x Labaume's Hist. of the Russian War
Lewis's tales
Castle of Udolpho
Guy Mannering
Charles XII by Voltaire
Tales of the East'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
[Mary Shelley's Reading List for 1816. The diary from May 1815-July 1816 is lost, so this list is our only record for Mary's reading in early 1816. Later in the year texts are referred to in diary entries so as far as possible these works are not given separate database references based on this list. An x marks the fact that Percy Shelley read the book too.]
x Moritz' tour in England
Tales of the Minstrels
x Park's Journal of a Journey in Africa
Peregrine Proteus
x Siege of Corinth & Parasina.
4 vols. of Clarendon's History
x Modern Philosophers
opinions of Various writers on the punishment of death by B. Montagu
Erskines speeches
x Caleb Williams
x 3rd Canto of Childe Harold
Schiller's arminian
Lady Craven's Leters
Caliste
Nouvelle nouvelles
Romans de Voltaire
Reveries d'un Solitaire de Rousseau
Adele et Theodore
x Lettres Persannes de Montesquieu
Tableau de Famille
Le vieux de la Montagne
x Conjuration de Rienzi
Walther par La Fontaine
Les voeux temeraires
Herman d'Una
Nouveaux nouvelles de Mad. de Genlis
x Christabel
Caroline de Litchfield
x Bertram
x Le Criminel se[c]ret
Vancenza by Mrs Robinson
Antiquary
x Edinburgh Review num. LII
Chrononhotonthologus
x Fazio
Love and Madness
Memoirs of Princess of Bareith
x Letters of Emile
The latter part of Clarissa Harlowe
Clarendons History of the Civil War
x Life of Holcroft
x Glenarvon
Patronage
The Milesian Chief.
O'Donnel
x Don Quixote
x Vita Alexandri - Quintii Curtii
Conspiration de Rienzi
Introduction to Davy's Chemistry
Les Incas de Marmontel
Bryan Perdue
Sir C. Grandison
x Castle Rackrent
x Gulliver's Travels
x Paradise Lost
x Pamela
x 3 vol of Gibbon
1 book of Locke's Essay
Some of Horace's odes
x Edinburgh Review L.III
Rights of Women
De senectute by Cicero
2 vols of Lord Chesterfield's leters to his son
x Story of Rimini'
'Pastor Fido
Orlando Furioso
Livy's History
Seneca's Works
Tasso's Girusalame Liberata
Tassos Aminta
2 vols of Plutarch in Italian
Some of the plays of Euripedes
Seneca's Tragedies
Reveries of Rousseau
Hesiod
Novum Organum
Alfieri's Tragedies
Theocritus
Ossian
Herodotus
Thucydides
Homer
Locke on the Human Understanding
Conspiration de Rienzi
History of arianism
Ochley's History of the Saracens
Mad. de Stael sur la literature'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
[Mary Shelley's Reading List for 1816. The diary from May 1815-July 1816 is lost, so this list is our only record for Mary's reading in early 1816. Later in the year texts are referred to in diary entries so as far as possible these works are not given separate database references based on this list. An x marks the fact that Percy Shelley read the book too.]
x Moritz' tour in England
Tales of the Minstrels
x Park's Journal of a Journey in Africa
Peregrine Proteus
x Siege of Corinth & Parasina.
4 vols. of Clarendon's History
x Modern Philosophers
opinions of Various writers on the punishment of death by B. Montagu
Erskines speeches
x Caleb Williams
x 3rd Canto of Childe Harold
Schiller's arminian
Lady Craven's Leters
Caliste
Nouvelle nouvelles
Romans de Voltaire
Reveries d'un Solitaire de Rousseau
Adele et Theodore
x Lettres Persannes de Montesquieu
Tableau de Famille
Le vieux de la Montagne
x Conjuration de Rienzi
Walther par La Fontaine
Les voeux temeraires
Herman d'Una
Nouveaux nouvelles de Mad. de Genlis
x Christabel
Caroline de Litchfield
x Bertram
x Le Criminel se[c]ret
Vancenza by Mrs Robinson
Antiquary
x Edinburgh Review num. LII
Chrononhotonthologus
x Fazio
Love and Madness
Memoirs of Princess of Bareith
x Letters of Emile
The latter part of Clarissa Harlowe
Clarendons History of the Civil War
x Life of Holcroft
x Glenarvon
Patronage
The Milesian Chief.
O'Donnel
x Don Quixote
x Vita Alexandri - Quintii Curtii
Conspiration de Rienzi
Introduction to Davy's Chemistry
Les Incas de Marmontel
Bryan Perdue
Sir C. Grandison
x Castle Rackrent
x Gulliver's Travels
x Paradise Lost
x Pamela
x 3 vol of Gibbon
1 book of Locke's Essay
Some of Horace's odes
x Edinburgh Review L.III
Rights of Women
De senectute by Cicero
2 vols of Lord Chesterfield's leters to his son
x Story of Rimini'
'Pastor Fido
Orlando Furioso
Livy's History
Seneca's Works
Tasso's Girusalame Liberata
Tassos Aminta
2 vols of Plutarch in Italian
Some of the plays of Euripedes
Seneca's Tragedies
Reveries of Rousseau
Hesiod
Novum Organum
Alfieri's Tragedies
Theocritus
Ossian
Herodotus
Thucydides
Homer
Locke on the Human Understanding
Conspiration de Rienzi
History of arianism
Ochley's History of the Saracens
Mad. de Stael sur la literature'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'after dinner read some of Livy but am stopt by the badness of the edition. Shelley reads Political justice'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Read Waverly - Pliny's letters - Political Justice & Miltons Tenure of Kings and Magistrates. Shelley reads Waverly - Tales of my Landlord & several of the works of Plato'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Political Justice.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Finish the 1st book of Tacitus - become unwell - read Davis's travels in america - Godwins cursory strictures - reply to the attacks of Dr Parr'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Finish the 1st book of Tacitus - become unwell - read Davis's travels in america - Godwins cursory strictures - reply to the attacks of Dr Parr'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley
'Read St. Leon aloud. Read Davis's travels in america - Tacitus'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'I read Tacitus - 3 of Hume's essays VIII IX X - some of the German theatre - write - walk - Shelleys [sic] reads Political Justice & 8 Cantos of his poem.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'S. finishes Political Justice Read Tacitus & Hume - work in the evening read Mandeville.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'S. finishes Political Justice Read Tacitus & Hume - work in the evening read Mandeville.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Read Mandeville all day & finish it. S. reads Mandeville.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Read Mandeville all day & finish it. S. reads Mandeville.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
[Mary Shelley's Reading List for 1817. As far as possible texts mentioned in journal entries are not given separate database entries from this list. Texts marked with an x were read by Percy Shelley too]
'Two vols of Lord Chesterfields Letters.
xColeridges Lay Sermon
Memoirs of Count Gramont
Somnium Scipionis
Roderick Random
Comus
Knights of the Swan
Cumberlands memoirs de se
Junius' letters
Journey to the World Underground
D. of Buckinhams Rehearsal and the Restoration
Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia by Sir P. Sidney
Round Table by W. Hazlitt
Cupids Revenge
Martial Maid
Wild Goose Chase [these three bracketed as by Beaumont and Fletcher]
x Tales of my Landlord
Rambler
Waverley
Amadis de Gaul
Epistolae Plinii Secundi
x Story of Phsyche [sic] in Apuleius
Anna St Ives
Vita Julii Caesari - Suetonius
x Defoe on the Plague
x Wilsons City of the Plague
Miss Edgeworths Comic Dramas
Fortitude and Frailty by F. Holcroft
3rd Canto of Childe Harold
Quarterly Review
x Lalla Rookh by T. Moore
x Davis' travels in America
x Godwin's Mecellanies
x Spenser's Fairy Queen
x Manuscrit venu de St Helene
Buffon's theorie du terre
Beaumont and Fletchers Plays
x Volpone; Cynthia's Revels. The Alchymist.
Fall of Sejanus. Catilines conspiracy
La Nouvelle Heloise
Lettres Persiennes
Miss Edgeworths Harrington and Ormond
Arthur Mervyn
x Antony & Cleopatra - Othello
Missionary; Rhoda. Wild Irish Girl; Glenarvon; The Anaconda; Pastors Fire side; Amelia; Sir Launcelot Greaves; Strathallan; Twopenny post bag; Anti Jacobin poetry.
Miseries of human life
x Moores odes & epistles
Le Lettre d'Una Peruviana
Confessions et Lettres de Rousseau
x Lamb's Specimens
Molliere's George Dandin - le Testament
Family of Montorio - Querelles de famille
German Theatre - Eugenie & Mathilde
x Mandeville
x Laon and Cynthia
x Lady Morgan's "France".
The three brothers
First vol of Humes Essays
Annalium C. Cornelii Taciti.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Mandeville'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Monday Sept. 19th. Rise late [...] Read the Curse of Kehama & Emile [...] Read the [S]orcerer &
Political Justice. Admire the Sorcerer very much'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
''Tuesday Oct. 4th. [...] Read Alexy [...] Haimatoff twice through -- more delighted with it [...]
In the Evening read Political Justice -- Sit up till twelve.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
''Wednesday Oct. 5th. [...] Read Political Justice Shelley reads aloud the Ancient Mariner. &
Mad [...] Mother.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
''Thursday Oct. 6th. [...] Read a little of Political Justice [...] Dine at six [...] After dinner
[Shelley] reads part of St Godwin aloud -- terrible nonsense [...] Read some of Mary
Wollstonecraft's letters in the Evening.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Friday Oct. 6th. [...] Read Political Justice.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Sunday Oct-- 9th [...] Read Political Justice [...] Shelley reads aloud part of Abbe Barruel
about the Illuminati'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Monday Oct -- 10th. Read Political Justice [...] sit up till twelve [...] Read through Zastrozzi --
by Shelley.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Tuesday Oct. 11th. [...] Shelley reads [a]loud Abbe Barruel -- the Illuminati [...] read Political
Justice & talk with Shelley over the fire till -- 12 o'clock.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Thursday -- 13th [October]. Read Political Justice.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Friday Oct.14 [...] Read St Leon -- go to bed at [...] nine'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Wednesday Oct 19th [...] Read Prince Alexy Haimatoff again -- read also Political Justice [...] In
the Evening read Memoires of Voltaire by himself.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Thursday Oct -- 20th [...] After dinner read Political Justice [...] read Memoires of Voltaire -- &
the Life of Alfieri till late [...] I am much delighted with Alfieri -- He seems to have possessed
much genius & enthusiasm -- but certainly he was never very far from raving Mad -- the
anecdotes of his infancy are delightful'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Monday Oct. 24th. Rise at eight [...] M. reads aloud She stoops to [C]onquer -- She sets out to
see Shelley at eleven -- I stay at home & read Political Justice'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Wednesday Nov. 2nd. [...] Read Political Justice. Chapter on Necessity.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Thursday Nov-- 3rd. Rise at nine. Read Political Justice.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Monday Nov. 7th. Rise at nine -- Work. Read Political Justice -- Mary [Wollstonecraft
Godwin] dines at one & goes to Shelley. Read King Richard the Third -- Dine by myself at four.
Mary returns at six -- Talk with her. & read some miscellaneous poetry.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Tuesday Nov. 8th. Rise at nine -- Read through the Man of Feeling who would have just suited
Fanny [Godwin] for a husband [...] [Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin] dines at two & goes to meet
Shelley [...] Read Political Justice [...] Read Paul & Virginia -- in the Evening. I admire the
descriptions [...] The Story is [...] in itself trifling & uninteresting -- the speeches and Characters
are inflated and unnatural.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Teusday [sic] August 8th. Ill all day. I dream I see a ghost [this sentence inserted above
line]. Bathe. Read Castle of Otranto & Caleb Williams.
[...]
'Wednesday August 9th. Ill all day -- Read Caleb Williams.
[...]
'Thursday August 10th. Finish Caleb Williams.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Read the 1st vol of Mandeville'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Translate Sxxxxxa [Spinoza]. Read Lettres Cabalistiques - S. reads Ezechiel aloud. Reads Political Justice -'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'read Memoirs.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Caleb Williams'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'finish Caleb Williams. S. reads Euripides'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'read & finish Malthus - Begin the Answer'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'read the Answer to Malthus - finish it'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'read Caleb Williams to Jane'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'I have just finished Cloudesley - the interest is inexpressibly absorbing - there is a truth and majesty in the delineation of the passions, and a simplicity and grace in the style different from the present day - and striking one as one reads as how infinitely superior'
[Letter to Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley - Mary's publishers]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
Robert Southey to Horace Walpole Bedford, 12-15 December 1793: 'I would recommend you to read Godwins enquiry concerning Political Justice but the work is large & I might act culpably in wishing to influence your sentiments. observe my meaning. to consider you as HW Bedford with respect to your family I should act wrongly. as a man justice would dictate otherwise.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, c. 1-10 October 1795, 'Experience never wasted her lesson on a less fit pupil yet Bedford my mind is considerably expanded my opinions are better grounded & frequent self-conviction of error has taught me a sufficient degree of scepticism upon all subjects to prevent confidence. the frequent & careful study of Godwin was of essential service I read & all but worshipped I have since seen his fundamental error that he theorizes for another state not for the rule of conduct in the present I despise the man I can confute his principles. but all the good he has done me remains. tis a book I should one day like to read with you for our mutual improvement, when we have been neighbours six months our opinions will accord. a bold prophecy but it will be fulfilled.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
Robert Southey to Horace Walpole Bedford, 12 June 1796: 'Lewiss Monk I have not seen [material scored out] Such publications may be made the vehicles of much truth & utility yet have I hitherto seen very few that really are so. in his Anna St Ives Holcroft has succeeded but his Hugh Trevor is outrageously caricatured. Things as they are is likewise a very faulty novel, & one which shews William Godwin to be little acquainted with human characters. I have planned a work to delineate existing systems & their consequent vices & misery, & hope to do some good by it if I have ever leisure to fill up the outlines.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, 12 September 1797: 'Nothing disgusts me so much as the affectation of fine language. Godwins Enquirer is a sad example. if a writer has a plain thing to express let him express it plainly, & if he ought to write at all the ideas will elevate the language he may rest assured that his language will not elevate the idea.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
'"You will know my secret if you will; but if I tell you, you shall be made miserable throughout your life -- I will be another Falkland to you." This reference to Godwin's Caleb Williams was frequent with [Byron]: she [Anne Isabella, his wife] had read the book and understood its meaning'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Isabella Lady Byron Print: Book
