“Godwin Was the Parlor-Radical of Napoleonic England; Brown’s Biography of Shelley’s Father-in-Law Does Justice to a Very Human Philosopher” reads the title of the New York Times 1926 review of Ford Brown’s biography. William Godwin, was a prolific writer: a journalist, novelist and political philosopher; although, he is now mostly remembered as the husband of Mary Wollstonecraft and father of Mary Shelley. Here Brown approaches his subject less from Shelley’s standpoint, and makes a plausible plea for Godwin both as a political and ethical thinker.