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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

The Letters of William Godwin, Volume IV (OUP, forthcoming), includes 34 letters to his daughter Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (b. OTD 1797), author of Frankenstein (1818), five more full-length novels, & pioneering editor of P. B. Shelley's poems. Posthumous 19c. miniature by Reginald Easton.

Posthumous nineteenth-century miniature of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, by Reginald Easton. Bodleian Library Shelley relics (d). This watercolour portrait is mounted in a frame of open-work gilt metal incorporating a monogram ‘MW’ at the top. It depicts Mary Shelley as a young woman gazing to the right, with plaited hair and a light shawl draped over the back of her head. She is wearing pansies at her breast.

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Volume IV of the OUP edition of William Godwin’s letters, now at press, includes an extensive description of his 1816 visit to Abbotsford, together with four letters to Sir Walter Scott (b. OTD 1771), all written in 1824, the same year that Edwin Landseer painted this portrait of Scott at home.

Portrait of Sir Walter Scott, 1st Bt, by Sir Edwin Landseer, c.1824. This oil painting depicts Scott seated at his desk, looking up from the act of writing. He is surrounded by books and papers. The sword of Montrose, one of his most treasured historical relics, is lying over the manuscript sheets in the foreground.

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

My agapanthus, the sole survivor on my west-facing balcony, captured at daybreak. #climatecrisis

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Godwin & Curran at Glendalough, 7-8 Aug. 1800: 'We arrived at the Seven Churches about 5 o'clock, where we found neither Inn, nor alehouse, but a camp, the officers of which generously spying our distress, & hearing the name of counsellor Curran, supplied us...with dinner, tea, supper & beds.'

Glendalough, Co. Wicklow, engraved by George Virtue after William Henry Bartlett (1860s). Private Collection/Ken Welsh/Bridgeman Images

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

#OTD 1834: death of English poet and polymath Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the quince which William Godwin longed to engraft upon his apple-tree, 'melting & combining several of your modes of feeling ... into the substance of my mind' (Godwin to Coleridge, 5 September 1800; Letters, ii. 169).

Mezzotint engraving of Samuel Taylor by William Say, after James Northcote, 1805. British Museum

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

Father's Day again. It will always be your day, Dad (pictured here as Sheriff of the Borough of Berwick-upon-Tweed in the early 1990s, following his year as Mayor, 1987-8).

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

#OTD 1794: publication of #WilliamGodwin’s most celebrated novel, Caleb Williams, in which the servant Caleb denounces his murderous employer, Falkland, & both are morally destroyed by fake news, dirty tricks, & all the truth-twisting deceptions by which authoritarian governments maintain power.

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

For late bloomers everywhere: Mary Delany (1700-1788) began her celebrated 'paper mosaicks' at the age of 72. Pictured: Myosotis Scorpiodes (Forget-me-not).

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

Corrections to 2nd proof of The Letters of William Godwin, Volume IV (618 pages before indexing), now completed and awaiting collection by OUP van man. Have been working on them since 16 January... Thanks to all those watching and waiting. #TheLongestJourney global.oup.com/academic/pro...

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

#OTD 7 April 1836: death of #WilliamGodwin, author of Political Justice, Caleb Williams, & many other works speaking truth to power; head of one of Britain's leading literary families; writer of 1500 astonishing letters – Vol. IV: 1816-1828 due out from OUP this year. global.oup.com/academic/pro...

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 05/04/2026

Wishing you a #HappyEaster with 'Loveliest of Trees', from A.E. Housman's A Shropshire Lad (1896). Each time I read this poem, I hear the voice of the late, great Jon Stallworthy (1935-2014) reciting it from memory. #EasterDay

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 21/03/2026

'The Bright Field', by R. S. Thomas, first published in his Laboratories of the Spirit (1975). #WorldPoetryDay

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 14/02/2026

#OTD 14 Feb. 1793: philosophical anarchist William Godwin published his celebrated love letter to the world, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, in which he envisaged a society based on justice, equality, tolerance, benevolence, & mutual moral accountability. #Valentine’sDay #LoveThyNeighbour

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 25/01/2026

'There'll never be peace till Jamie comes hame', by Robert Burns (b. 25 Jan. 1759), based on what he described as 'a beautiful Jacobite Air', was sent by him to the Edinburgh lawyer Alexander Cunningham on 11 March 1791, & published, set to music, in James Johnson's Scots Musical Museum (1792). 1/2

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 01/01/2026

Happy New Year! Best foot forward into 2026. Image: Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1932.

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 29/12/2025

Thomas Hardy’s great end of year lyric poem, 'The Darkling Thrush', first published in The Graphic on 29 Dec. 1900, and then in The Times on 1 Jan. 1901 – though a deleted ‘1899’ on the manuscript suggests he may have written it earlier.

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 26/12/2025

A good day for A Wild Goose Chase: Andrew McNeillie’s new collection of poems wiffling in for a landing.

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 24/12/2025

Thomas Hardy's 'The Oxen', composed in wartime and first published in The Times, 24 Dec. 1915.

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 23/12/2025

Remembering my father, Albert Edward Clemit, who died #OTD 23 December 2012, with snatches from the obituary I wrote for the #Berwickshire News. Thinking of others who, like me, winter out Christmas every year.

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 21/12/2025

Caleb Williams (1794), William Godwin's timely exposé of fake news, dirty tricks, and all the truth-twisting deceptions by which authoritarian governments maintain power, is now trending on Bluesky. (Image from 19c. reprint)

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 01/12/2025

#OTD 1 December 1817: publication of #WilliamGodwin’s Mandeville: A Tale of the Seventeenth Century, the only novel by him to be published in Edinburgh, & the subject of over 55 letters in Volume 4 of my OUP Letters of William Godwin, now at press.

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 29/11/2025

Small Business Saturday: a book ticket for M. J. Godwin & Co., the children’s publishing and bookselling business run by radical polymath William Godwin and his second wife, Mary Jane Godwin, from 1805 to 1825. Read all about it in my piece for the Idler: pamelaclemit.wordpress.com/2019/10/08/n...

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 02/10/2025

R. S. Thomas, ‘The Bright Field’, from Laboratories of the Spirit (1975) #NationalPoetryDay

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 21/09/2025

Volume IV of the OUP edition of William Godwin’s letters, now at press, includes an extensive description of his 1816 visit to Abbotsford, together with four letters to Sir Walter Scott (d. OTD 1832), all written in 1824, the same year that Edwin Landseer painted this portrait of Scott at home.

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 15/08/2025

This oil painting by Edwin Landseer (1824) depicts Scott seated at his desk, looking up from the act of writing. He is surrounded by books and papers. The sword of Montrose, one of his most treasured historical relics, is lying over the manuscript sheets in the foreground.

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 08/07/2025

#OTD 8 July 1822: Godwin’s son-in-law Percy Bysshe Shelley drowns in the Gulf of La Spezia, leaving many of his poems unpublished and his papers in disarray. What happened next? Read all about it in my piece for @thetls.bsky.social www.the-tls.com/literature/p...

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 15/06/2025

Father's Day again. My father in 1992. It will always be your day, Dad.

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 26/05/2025

#OTD 26 May 1794: publication of the radical polymath William Godwin's most celebrated novel, Things As They Are; or, the Adventures of Caleb Williams, a tale of flight & pursuit, & a searing analysis of all the truth-twisting deceptions by which authoritarian governments maintain power.

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 03/05/2025

Anarchy in the UK: OUP hoists its standard for radical polymath #WilliamGodwin, author of Political Justice, 1793, & Caleb Williams, 1794; & (in timespan of this volume) Mandeville: A Tale of the Seventeenth Century, Of Population, History of the Commonwealth of England; & many more works. At press.

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 20/04/2025

From A.E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad (1896). Every time I read this poem, I hear the voice of the late, great Jon Stallworthy (1935-2014) reciting it from memory. #Easter2025

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 15/04/2025

Another year, another birthday. The English artist, letter-writer, and bluestocking Mary Delany (1700-1788) began creating her ‘Paper Mosaiks’ at the age of 71.

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 07/04/2025

#OTD 7 Apr. 1836: death of the radical polymath #WilliamGodwin, author of Political Justice, 1793, Caleb Williams, 1794, & many other works; husband of #MaryWollstonecraft, the early advocate of women’s rights; father of #MaryShelley, author of The Last Man. He lives on in his writings—& in theirs.

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 29/03/2025

#OTD 29 March 1797: marriage of William Godwin, author of An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793), and Mary Wollstonecraft, author of Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), at St Pancras Old Church, Somers Town. The rest is history.

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

#OTD 3 March 1756: birth of radical polymath #WilliamGodwin, author of Political Justice (1793), a founding work of philosophical anarchism, Caleb Williams (1794), the first detective novel, & many other works – & letter writer extraordinaire.

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

What did the radical polymath #WilliamGodwin do on #Valentine’sDay, 1793? He published his love letter to humanity, An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, in which he denounced government corruption & envisaged a new society based on justice, equality, tolerance, & mutual moral accountability. 1/2

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 31/12/2024

Happy New Year to all! One of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s decisive moments, captured in 1932. Mind how you go.

A black-and-white photograph of a man jumping into a large puddle of water behind the Gare Saint-Lazare, a railway station in Paris. It captures the man in mid-air. His heel has not yet hit the water.

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 29/12/2024

Thomas Hardy’s great end-of-year lyric poem, ‘The Darkling Thrush’, was originally published in The Graphic on 29 December 1900 – though a deleted 1899 on the manuscript suggests he may have written it earlier.

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 24/12/2024

One of Thomas Hardy's wartime poems, first published in the Times, 24 December 1915. #ChristmasEve

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 01/12/2024

#OTD 1 December 1817: publication of #WilliamGodwin’s Mandeville: A Tale of the Seventeenth Century, his only novel to be published in Edinburgh. ‘Here is for once a Scottish writer, that they cannot say has anything of the Scotchman about him’, Godwin wrote to his publisher Archibald Constable. 1/2

Colour photo of the title page of the original 1817 edition.

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

7. I may post more on events, publications, personalities, relating to the volume to keep up my spirits during the production process. [END]

Black and white photograph of a zookeeper reading aloud to a large, imposing lion sitting beside him and sharing the book.

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

2. It will join Volume 1 and Volume 2 of Godwin’s letters, both edited by moi-même, and published in 2011 and 2014 respectively. (Volume 3 is still in progress.)

Colour photo of the first two volumes of The Letters of William Godwin, hardback books in pale blue dust jackets, displayed on the OUP stand at a conference.

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

7. I may post more on events, publications, & personalities, relating to the volume to keep up my spirits during the production process. [END]

Black and white photograph of a zookeeper reading aloud to a large, imposing lion sitting beside him & sharing the book.

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

RED-LETTER DAY: this afternoon I delivered the completed manuscript of The Letters of William Godwin, Volume IV: 1816-1828, to my editor at OUP. Contains 404 letters. Pictured (1) the last steps of a ten-year intellectual journey (2) engraving of Godwin by WH Lizars, after William Nicholson, 1816.

A colour photo of the steps leading to the main entrance to Oxford University Press on Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, taken 24 Nov. 2024.

Godwin is depicted facing left, with the strong, imperturbable face of a man full of intellectual energy. The portrait is executed with anatomical precision to highlight the phrenological features of his head. He is dressed formally in a high white neckcloth and a buttoned coat.

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 11/11/2024

Here is photo of the published text of the entire letter, with apologies for indifferent quality. Hope this helps. (Source: The Letters of William Godwin, Volume I, ed. Pamela Clemit, OUP, 2011.)

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 10/11/2024

'Drummer Hodge', by Thomas Hardy, published in 1899, the year of the start of the Second Boer War. #LestWeForget

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 09/11/2024

The Last Boat In, by Charles Napier Hemy, 1878. South Shields Museum & Art Gallery.

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 08/11/2024

The second and third pages of the first surviving letter, dated 13 July 1796, from the radical polymath William Godwin to the early advocate of women’s rights, Mary Wollstonecraft. The rest is history.

This unfolded manuscript sheet is reproduced in colour. On the second page Godwin writes in black ink, which has uniformly faded to dark brown. His handwriting is clear, well formed, and legible. The letter is playful in tone. The third page is blank, with the address, written on the verso, showing through.

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 26/10/2024

Hopped off Twitter yesterday. Sad to leave my loyal followers, but all the bridges are burning. Hope to find old/new friends over here interested in keeping up with the OUP Letters of #WilliamGodwin, Volume 4: 1816-1828, ed. moi-même, going into production shortly (frontispiece below). Please share.

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 11/10/2024

Such a kind acknowledgement from Mansfield College, Oxford, at the other place. 📢 New display @MansfieldColle1 📢 Books which were recently very generously donated by @MansfieldOxford alumna Pamela Clemit @Godwin_lives, to be used by future generations of @MansfieldOxford students

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Godwin_lives @pamelaclemit.bsky.social · 14/09/2024

'He governed a people that was hostile to him. His reign therefore was a reign of experiments. He perpetually did the thing he desired not to do, and was driven from one inconsistent mode of proceeding to another, as the necessity of the situation in which he was placed impelled him.' 2/2

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