The novel is classified as one of the best examples of the "victim-of-society story". The preface and subtitle of
Caleb Williams indicate to the reader that social theory is the main purpose of the novel. The 1790s was a time of radical political thought in Britain, due to the inspiration created from the
French Revolution in 1789, which inspired the questioning of the power held by King
George III and the Prime Minister
William Pitt. Published in 1794, William Godwin chose the date of publication as 12 May, the same day the Prime Minister had suspended
habeas corpus to begin mass arrests of suspected radicals. Godwin had already attained fame a year earlier through his publication of
Enquiry Concerning Political Justice. The subject matter, in combination with the political climate upon release, resulted in an extreme divergence of opinion regarding
Caleb Williams. A critic wrote, "Fancy is a faculty which we should not have expected to find in the brain of a philosopher who had struck his hand upon his heart and felt it stone; yet fancy Mr. Godwin possesses in no common degree." Many saw the book as an affront not only to government but also to justice, virtue, and religion. One review from the
British Critic in July 1794 stated, "This piece is a striking example of the evil use which may be made of considerable talents…every gentleman is a hard-hearted assassin, or a prejudiced tyrant; every Judge is unjust, every Justice corrupt and blind." Many critics saw
Caleb Williams as having a detrimental effect on society as propaganda for
anarchism. These critics saw
Caleb Williams as attacking the current established order, that Godwin was effectively spreading his "evil" principles throughout society. The same critic states, "When a work is so directly pointed at every band which connects society, and at every principle which renders it amiable, its very merits become noxious as they tend to cause its being known in a wider circle." There were also those who viewed the novel negatively in a different manner, as fictitious to a degree of irrelevance in its form as political commentary. This argument asserted that Godwin represented the law falsely to push his anarchistic ideals. Another reviewer from the
British Critic wrote in April 1795, "a Philosopher has invented a Fable for the purpose of attacking the moral and political prejudices of his countrymen, and in all the instances in which he has affected to state the law of the land, and to reason from it, has stated it falsely; and it is almost superfluous to say, that in so doing, he has outraged Philosophy, Reason, and Morality, the foundation, object, and end of which is Truth."
Anthony Trollope gave a lecture in 1870, published as
On English Prose Fiction ..., which included: "[
Caleb Williams has been] the subject of eulogies which I cannot understand ... It was written to depict the agony of one who suffered innocently from the despotic power of the English aristocracy, and is intended as a denunciation of the injustice of the time. But ... his sufferings were not compatible with the practice of law or the usages of life in those days. To my idea the book is false. It is certainly unreal, harsh, gloomy, and devoid of life. The writer was a fierce democrat, attacking every existing institution." See
An Autobiography, Anthony Trollope, Nicholas Shrimpton (ed.), 2014. .
Caleb Williams was otherwise received positively. Ford K. Brown writes in his biography of Godwin,
The Life of William Godwin, of a story in which a young boy finds out he just missed the author of
Caleb Williams and "with true genuine enthusiasm, falling suddenly on his knees, reverently kissed the chair which the philosopher had just quitted, rapturously thanking heaven that he might now say he had been in company with the author of the best novel in the English, or in any language". A notably appreciative review was included in
William Hazlitt's essay "William Godwin" in
The Spirit of the Age in which Hazlitt exclaims of the author: "he was in the very zenith of a sultry and unwholesome popularity; he blazed as a sun in the firmament of reputation; no one was more talked of, more looked up to, more sought after, and wherever liberty, truth, justice was the theme, his name was not far off—now he has sunk below the horizon, and enjoyed the serene twilight of a doubtful immortality." Of his novel, Hazlitt writes that "no one ever began
Caleb Williams that did not read it through: no one that ever read it could possibly forget it, or speak of it after any length of time but with an impression as if the events and feelings had been personal to himself." Elton and Esther Smith, in their biography of Godwin,
William Godwin, relate an anecdote from Godwin describing his friend Joseph Gerald's reception of
Caleb Williams: "having started Volume One late in the evening, he was unable to close his eyes in sleep until he had read through all three volumes". ==Stage version==