Fleetwood (review)

334 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION15:2 William Godwin. Fleetiuood. Ed. Gary Handwerk and A.A. Markley. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Press, 2000. 541pp. $15.95; US$12.05;£8.95. ISBN 1-55111-232-9. Fleetwood: or, the New Man ofFeeling, a lesser-known novel by William Godwin, was first published in 1805 and reissued with Godwin's corrections in Bentley's "Standard Novels" series in 1832. Until now, it has been available in only one modern edition, edited by Pamela Clemit as part of the Collected NoveL· and Memoirs of William Godwin (1992). This new scholarly edition by Gary Handwerk and A.A. Markley makes the second edition of Fleetwood readily accessible and affordable to readers of all kinds. Although the editors do not annotate variants between the first and second edition, they justify their choice of copy text on the grounds that Godwin himselfoversaw the publication of the second edition. In keeping with other scholarly editions ofeighteenth-century texts recendy published by Broadview Press, including Caleb Williams, which they also edited, Handwerk and Markley include a comprehensive introduction and thorough appendices that provide the intertextual and cultural backgounds to the novel. The introduction paints a sympathetic portrait of Godwin as a social critic, highlighting his interventions in eighteenth-century debates ranging from education to child labour to marriage. With this historical commentaiy as well as a discussion of several texts that influenced Godwin, the introduction clearly goes beyond a narrow literary focus on genre. The editors also include a brief overview of recent criticism of Fleetwood. Their detailed account of Godwin's literary precursors and heirs is helpful, although it runs the risk of drawing attention away from the particular merits of Godwin's novel. In addition, the introduction notes that Fleetwoodabounds widi examples of domestic injustice and social oppression suffered by women and the working class. With appended selections from A Vindication oftlieRights ofWomanand from novels by Wollstonecraft, Inchbald, and Hays, the editors are clearly trying to make Fleetwood attractive to feminist scholars. Repeated speculation in the introduction about tlie extent ofWollstonecraft's influence on Godwin is interesting, although occasionally overstated. While Handwerk and Markley do not go so far as to portray Godwin as a steadfast aposde ofWollstonecraft's radical feminism, they tend to elide the differences between Godwin's and Wollstonecraft's views on gender and sexuality. Diverse excerpts from twenty-two different texts make up the appendices, which reflect Godwin's eclectic tastes and capture the ambivalence of the novel with respect to form. Handwerk and Markley, however, make an unfortunate decision when they retain Godwin's brief preface to the first edition only to dispense with the longer preface to the second edition in which Godwin discusses the composition of Caleb Williams. This is a curious omission since the inclusion of over one hundred pages of appended material suggests the editors were not unduly constrained by considerations REVIEWS335 of length. Together, the introduction and appendices convey a sense of the political and social climate of Godwin's day. The inclusion of the second preface would have complemented their intention of reconstructing the cultural moment that produced this novel, while providing an interesting example of authorial voice through which Godwin comments on the effectiveness offirst-person narration for capturing psychological complexity , a point equally relevant to both Fleetwood and Caleb Williams. Despite the assertion in the introduction ??Fleetwoods significance to the rapidly growing field of gender studies, the editors offer no detailed comments on Godwin's theorization of gender and subjectivity, which arguably constitutes the heart of the novel as the only apparent point of convergence among the various plot lines. The introduction's somewhat cursory treatment of the story consequently overlooks the way in which the novel articulates the psychological toll exacted by social and economic inequity on all members of society, even privileged men such as Casimir Fleetwood. Moreover, with all the critical attention recently focused on representations of masculinity in eighteenth-century literature, this oversight by such astute editors is surprising. One would expect any novel with the subtitle The New Man ofFeeling to address issues of gender and of masculinity in particular. Godwin does not disappoint readers in this regard. The eponymous...