Sacred Secrets: Romantic Biography, Romantic Reform‪.‬

Most critics from the Romantic period to our own rime attack William Godwin for the effect that his biography of Mary Wollstonecraff had on her reputation. This article argues, however, that there is more to this "mistake" than sheer social ineptilude or repressed hostility. By connecting Godwin's Memoirs of the Author of the Rights of Woman to a novel that influenced Godwin' s understanding of radical reform, Eliza Fenwick's Secresy, this article shows that Godwin understood the "indelicacies" in Wollstonecraft's life as actions promoting social justice and saw his own biography as participating in that project. **********