ABSTRACT
Wollstonecraft’s relationship with Godwin has often been over-shadowed by the disastrous fall-out that followed Godwin’s heartfelt but imprudent Memoirs of her. This essay examines the difficulties that the couple experienced in forming a relationship in which they could recognize and treat each other as equals, and the strategies they employed, and considers the transformation from their awkward – and to Godwin wholly unsatisfactory – first meeting in 1792, to the relationship they enjoyed in the last months of Wollstonecraft’s life. One crucial intervening factor was Godwin’s own wider social experience, and particularly the resistance he encountered from women (perhaps especially Amelia Alderson) to his philosophical style of interpolation. When Godwin’s and Wollstonecraft’s relationship became intimate in the summer of 1796 they encountered a range of difficulties – symptomatic of the structured forms of inequality in their milieu. Their courage in negotiating and dealing with these, even if there were many slips and misunderstandings, is not often acknowledged, but it is an important, if evanescent, moment in the 1790s and one that helps us understand Godwin’s response to Wollstonecraft’s death.
