Godwin’s “Metaphysical Dissecting Knife”

Abstract

William Godwin’s Things as They Are; or, the Adventures of Caleb Williams (1794) tells the story of Ferdinando Falkland’s knife murder of Barnabas Tyrrel. To protect his reputation and hide his guilt, Falkland persecutes his servant Caleb Williams, whose uncontrollable curiosity has led to his discovery of Falkland’s crime. The best commentary on the knives and the watchful, penetrating eyes in this tale was provided by Godwin himself, almost forty years after the first appearance of the novel, in the account of the composition of Caleb Williams that he included in the Preface to the 1832 edition of Fleetwood (a novel first published in 1805).