Godwin, William

Godwin, William ( 1756 – 1836 )
British social philosopher and novelist. At first a dissenting minister, he subsequently became an atheist and expounded theories of anarchic social organization based on a belief in the goodness of human reason and on his doctrine of extreme individualism. His ideological novel Caleb Williams ( 1794 ), which exposes the tyranny exercised by the ruling classes, was an early example of the crime and detection novel. In 1797 he married Mary Wollstonecraft , who died after giving birth to their daughter who became Mary Shelley .