Writer William Godwin was born in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire on March 3, 1756. He attended Hoxton Presbyterian College and became a minister. He left the ministry in 1787 in order to become a full-time writer. His best-known works are Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793) and The Adventures of Caleb Williams (1794). In 1797, he married feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft and they had a child who later became known as Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley the author of Frankenstein. He primarily wrote novels during his later years, including Mandeville (1817), Cloudesley (1830) and Deloraine (1833). He died on April 7, 1836.
Gina Luria Walker is Associate Professor of Women's Studies at The New School. She is the author of Mary Hays (1759-1843): The Growth of A Woman's Mind (Ashgate, 2006) and The Idea of Being Free: A Mary Hays Reader (Broadview, 2005). She is co-editor of William Godwin's Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Broadview, 2001), and has published widely on Romantic literature and Enlightenment feminism.