Caleb Williams
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The Adventures of Caleb Williams, or Things as They Are (1794) by William Godwin is a three-volume novel written as a call to end the abuse of power by what Godwin saw as a tyrannical government. Intended as a popularization of the ideas presented in his 1793 treatise Political Justice Godwin uses Caleb Williams to show how legal and other institutions can and do destroy individuals, even when the people the justice system touches are innocent of any crime. This reality, in Godwin's mind was therefore a description of "things as they are."The novel describes the downfall of Ferdinando Falkland, a British squire, and his attempts to ruin and destroy the life of Caleb Williams, a poor but ambitious young man that Falkland hires as his personal secretary. Caleb accidentally discovers a terrible secret in his master's past. Though Caleb promises to be bound to silence, Falkland, irrationally attached (in Godwin's view) to ideas of social status and inborn virtue, cannot bear that his servant should possibly have power over him, and sets out to use various means--unfair trials, imprisonment, pursuit, to make sure that the information of which Caleb is the bearer will never be revealed.Godwin described the book as "a series of adventures of flight and pursuit; the fugitive in perpetual apprehension of being overwhelmed with the worst calamities", so that Caleb Williams can be classified as an early thriller or mystery novel.In order to evade a censorship ban on presenting the novel on the stage, the impresario Richard Brinsley Sheridan presented the piece on the stage of his Drury Lane Theatre in 1796 under the title The Iron Chest, his pretext for avoiding censorship being that his resident composer Stephen Storace had made an "operatic version" of the story.
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Caleb Williams is part philosophical novel, part thriller and part vocabulary lesson. Usually the book is cited as being anarchic, but it isn't directly so. It doesn't suggest an alternative to the existing government, it's not pro-capitalism or pro-syndicalism but it does hold to the most basic principles of moral anarchy which are non-violence and non-coercion. It is extremely critical of “monopolists and kings.” In Godwin's own words: “law [is:] better adapted for a weapon of tyranny in the hands of the rich, than for a shield to protect the humbler part of the community against their usurpations.”His case is compelling, especially given the late 18th century England setting. The protagonist is pursued ruthlessly by a man who is able to manipulate the law based on his wealth and reputation. Caleb Williams tries every legal and social recourse to escape, but at each turn is prevailed upon by his more wealthy and influential enemy. At times, this scenario seems pretty unlikely and is possibly a little too pessimistic about the motives of government, but still, it illustrates the harrowing point rather well.Philosophy aside, Caleb Williams is a page-turner. It doesn't move as fast as modern thrillers, William's internal dialog becomes a little tedious, but there is no lack of danger or suspense. He is the archetype of rugged manliness and never subject to moral equivocation. It's plausible that he provided Rand with some inspiration for Howard Roark.At the end of the edition I read, there some great contemporary reviews. Some miss the philosophical point of the book entirely and only praise or criticize it on its literary merits. Most of the rest blast it to perdition for its blasphemous criticism of the English government and its lack of an explicit religious message. Even so, they all praise the writing style (some even compare him to [a:DeFoe 1274408 Mark DeFoe http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg] and [a:Cervantes 2601 Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1199114099p2/2601.jpg]). Only William Hazlitt (tellingly, the only one of the critics whose name hasn't been relegated to obscurity today) is somewhat sympathetic to the ideas of the book. A quotation:“Strange that men, from age to age, should consent to hold their lives at the breath of another, merely that each in his turn may have a power of acting the tyrant according to the law! Oh, God! give me poverty! Shower upon me all the imaginary hardships of human life! I will receive them with all thankfulness. Turn me a prey to the wild beasts of the desert, so I be never again the victim of man, dressed in the gore-dripping robes of authority! Suffer me at least to call life, the pursuits of life, my own! Let me hold it at the mercy of the elements, of the hunger of the beasts, or the revenge of barbarians, but not of the cold-blooded prudence of monopolists and kings!”
