ABSTRACT
The Genius of Christianity Unveiled is Godwin’s last work, which he left in an incomplete form on his death. The manuscript is part of dep. b 226/16(a–c) in the Abinger collection deposited in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. The work was entrusted to his daughter, Mary Shelley, for publication. She held back the manuscript, and it was eventually published as Essays Never Before Published, edited by C. Kegan Paul (London: H. S. King, 1873). Kegan Paul’s editorial intervention consisted in reducing the size of the manuscript by including only those essays which Godwin appeared to consider complete. This excludes a considerable amount of material, but much of this is fragmentary or repetitive. On the whole we have concurred with Kegan Paul’s judgment as to which sections of the manuscript should be published. As a result, the present text contains everything which is contained in Kegan Paul’s original edition, with two exceptions. That editor’s preface has been removed, and we have not followed his practice of ‘correcting’ all Godwin’s biblical quotations to conform to the King James edition of the Bible. Using the manuscript we have given Godwin’s own version of the quotations and we have corrected occasional errors in the previous editor’s transcription, including the occasional missed passage. We have added two items to the original edition: Godwin’s letter to his daughter concerning the manuscript is transcribed here as an introduction to the work; and the essays themselves are prefaced by the longest and most complete edition of the essays edition of the essays which Kegan Paul chose not to publish. This essay, dated October 2, 1835, is marked at the top, in Godwin’s hand: ‘Rejected – Some thoughts from hence might be inserted in other places. April 1, 1836’. However, given that this is written at such a late stage, and that there is little overlap between this essay and those included by Kegan Paul, we have judged that it merits inclusion – more so than any of the other material from the deposit. There is no evidence that Godwin decided to reject the essay because of the views it advanced; it is much more likely that he was unhappy about the broad scope of the essay and wished to produce several shorter, more focused pieces. The essay is of special interest because it indicates Godwin’s own views about the character of the project upon which he was engaged and about its likely reception.
