Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle

A compact survey examines how the tumult of the French Revolution reshaped English thought and literature by profiling key radicals and poets. It follows Thomas Paine's pamphleteering and prosecution, William Godwin's political philosophy and its evolution under reaction, Mary Wollstonecraft's advocacy and life, and the artistic and intellectual ties linking these figures to Percy Bysshe Shelley. Chapters analyze pamphlets, trials, public panics, conventions, and the shifting balance from reforming zeal to repression and later literary response. The narrative combines political history, intellectual biography, and critical readings, and concludes with a bibliography and index.