William Godwin died 174 years ago last month, in the year 1836, at the age of 80. He was largely forgotten by the time of his death, but in the years since, his reputation has slowly grown back, if not to what it was in his prime, in the 1790s, then, at least to something a good deal more impressive than anything he could muster in the 1830s. Godwin had been born in Wisbech, England, a small town on the River Nene about a hundred miles north of London, on March 3, 1756. He was the son, grandson, and nephew of Dissenting, or Nonconformist, ministers
