William Godwin (1756–1836) was one of the first exponents of utilitarianism and the first modern proponent of anarchism. He was not only a radical philosopher but a pioneer in libertarian education, a founder of communist economics, and an acute and powerful novelist whose literary family included his partner, pioneering feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft, and his daughter Mary Godwin (later Mary Shelley), who would go on to write Frankenstein and marry the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. “A handsome and handy little book, excavating nuggets of Godwinian wisdom from the whole range of his writings.” - Times Educational Supplement