Pitt, who was then Prime Minister, when his attention was called to the book, wisely remarked, "It is not worth while to prosecute the author of a three-guinea book, because at such a price very little harm can be done to those who have not three shillings to spare."
The following year Godwin published his one other book that has escaped the rubbish heap of time--"The Adventures of Caleb Williams," a novel. It is the best of what might be called "The Nightmare Series," which would begin with "The Castle of Otranto," include his own daughter's "Frankenstein," and end, for the moment, with Bram Stoker's "Dracula." "Caleb Williams" has genuine merit; that it is horrible and unnatural may be at once admitted, but there is a vitality about it which holds your interest to the last; unrelieved by any flash of sentiment or humor, it is still as entirely readable as it was once immensely popular. Colman, the younger, dramatized it under the name of "The Iron Chest," and several generations of playgoers have shuddered at the character of Falkland, the murderer, who, and not Caleb Williams, is the chief character. His other novels are soup made out of the same stock, as a _chef_ would say, with a dash of the supernatural added.
Godwin had now written all that he was ever to write on which the dust of years has not settled, to be disturbed only by some curious student of a forgotten literature; yet he supposed that he was writing for posterity!
Meanwhile he, who had been living with his head in the clouds, became aware of the existence of "females." It was an important, if belated, discovery. He was always an inveterate letter-writer, and his curious letters to a number of women have been preserved. He seems to have had more than a passing fancy for Amelia Alderson, afterward Mrs. Opie, the wife of the artist. He was intimate with Mrs. Robinson, the "Perdita" of the period, in which part she attracted the attention of the Prince of Wales. Mrs. Inchbald and Mrs. Reveley were also friends, with whom he had frequent misunderstandings. His views on the subject of marriage being well known, perhaps these ladies, merely to test the philosopher, sought to overcome his objection to "that worst of institutions." If so, their efforts were unsuccessful.