Reading Order
Caleb Williams Reading Order
Things As They Are; or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams (1794) by William Godwin is one of the most politically radical and formally innovative novels of the eighteenth century — a first-person narrative in which Caleb Williams, secretary to the aristocrat Falkland, discovers that his employer committed a murder years ago, and spends the rest of the novel fleeing Falkland's persecution as Falkland uses his wealth, social position, and the corrupt legal system to destroy him. Godwin, the father of philosophical anarchism (his Political Justice had been published the previous year), wrote the novel as an illustration of his argument that property and social hierarchy corrupt both those who benefit from them and those they crush — Falkland is a man of genuine honour and refinement who has committed murder to protect his reputation and will destroy an innocent man to maintain it. The novel inverted its own composition: Godwin wrote the third volume first (Caleb in prison, persecuted), then the second (the chase), then the first (Falkland's backstory) — and the resulting structure, in which Caleb pursues knowledge of Falkland's guilt and is then hunted for that knowledge, is the prototype of the thriller and the detective novel alike. The novel influenced Poe, Dickens (particularly Bleak House), Conrad, and Kafka, and is considered the founding text of the radical Gothic and the persecution novel.
Where to start
Caleb Williams (1794) — the Oxford World's Classics edition edited by Gary Handwerk and A.A. Markley (2009) is the best modern scholarly edition; the Penguin Classics edition edited by Maurice Hindle is also reliable. Read volume one carefully for Falkland's backstory (the 'Hawkins' narrative embedded within Caleb's account); the shift in narrative gear when Caleb's persecution begins in volume two is one of the great moments of eighteenth-century fiction.
Complete Caleb Williams Book List
- 1Buy
Caleb Williams (Oxford World's Classics)
William Godwin (ed. Gary Handwerk and A.A. Markley)·2009·The authoritative modern edition — Handwerk and Markley's introduction situates the novel in Godwin's political philosophy and in the tradition of the eighteenth-century novel; essential notes on the legal and social context of persecution. - 2Buy
Political Justice
William Godwin·1793·Godwin's philosophical masterpiece and the theoretical context for Caleb Williams — the argument that social institutions corrupt human nature is the premise of the novel; reading even the abridged edition illuminates everything Godwin is doing in the fiction. - 3Buy
Frankenstein
Mary Shelley·1818·Godwin's daughter wrote Frankenstein under the direct influence of Caleb Williams — the creature's first-person account of persecution by his creator (and by society) is the Gothic amplification of Caleb's situation; reading the two together shows the Gothic radical tradition Godwin initiated. - 4Buy
St. Leon
William Godwin·1799·Godwin's second major novel — the tale of a man cursed with the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life, who finds that immortality and unlimited wealth bring only persecution and alienation; darker and more Gothic than Caleb Williams. - 5Buy
Bleak House
Charles Dickens·1853·The Victorian novel that most completely inherits Caleb Williams' vision of the law as an instrument of persecution — Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce echoes Falkland's use of legal machinery to destroy Caleb; Dickens knew Godwin and the debt is profound.
Caleb Williams — Frequently Asked Questions
What is Caleb Williams about?
Caleb Williams (1794) by William Godwin tells the story of Caleb Williams, secretary to the aristocrat Falkland, who discovers that his employer murdered a man years ago to protect his honour. Once Caleb possesses this knowledge, Falkland — a man of genuine refinement who cannot bear the destruction of his reputation — pursues him relentlessly, using his wealth and social position to have Caleb imprisoned, accused of crimes, and hunted across England. The novel is simultaneously a political argument about how property and social hierarchy corrupt society, a psychological study of the relationship between pursuer and pursued, and a prototype of both the detective novel and the thriller.
Is Caleb Williams the first detective novel?
Caleb Williams (1794) is frequently cited as a prototype of the detective novel — not because it features a detective, but because its structural dynamic (the pursuit of a hidden truth, the discovery of guilt, the attempt to prove the unprovable) anticipates the detective novel's central concerns. Godwin wrote the novel backwards: he composed the third volume first (Caleb in prison, persecuted), then worked backward to the discovery and then the backstory. The embedded narrative of Falkland's past crime, gradually uncovered by Caleb's investigation, is the first extended mystery narrative in the English novel tradition, and it influenced Poe, Collins, and Dickens directly.
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