Published in 1793, _Political Justice_ was still rising in public esteem, when Godwin produced (in May 1794) _Caleb Williams_; a novel that was largely indebted for its singular popularity to the influence of the political treatise. The books may be said to have run together, and united in placing their author amongst the most famous writers of his generation,--the success of the novel stimulating the success of the scientific study, whilst admiration of the philosopher’s reasonings quickened the interest in his work of fancy. Whilst readers hastened eagerly from the tale of terror to the work of unemotional demonstration, others passed with curiosity from the volumes of the political philosopher to the pages of the enthralling story. In the annals of English letters there is no other case of an author, achieving almost at the same moment so sensational a celebrity in two such different departments of literary enterprise. In the days when _Political Justice_ and _Caleb Williams_ were new literature, eminently successful authors derived less emolument from their most popular writings, than comes now-a-days to authors of inferior merit from works of only average popularity. But putting him in pecuniary ease for the moment, Godwin’s double triumph (though he sold the novel for a curiously small sum) placed him in a position that, to a man of his industry and frugal habits, was a promise of security from financial discomfort, so long as he retained his power of working, and persisted in the ways of prudence. That he was not likely to fall into poverty through self-indulgence appeared from his way of living when fortune smiled upon him. Remaining in the little house in Somers Town, where his yearly expenditure never exceeded 130_l._, he showed no disposition either for the pleasures of luxury or the pleasures of ostentation.