Chapter III: The Second Mrs. William Godwin 60

The Blighted Being--Miss Jones’s Disappointment--The Blighted
Being goes to Bath--He proposes to Miss Harriet Lee--Is
rejected by Mrs. Reveley--Is accepted by Mary Jane
Clairmont--Who was she?--Her Children by her first
Marriage--Their Ages in 1801--Points of Resemblance in Mary
Wollstonecraft and Mary Jane Clairmont--The Blighted Being
marries Mary Jane Clairmont--Mr. Kegan Paul’s serious
Misrepresentations of Claire’s Age--The Use made of this
Misrepresentation--Mr. Kegan Paul convicted by his own
Evidences--Charles Clairmont’s Boyhood--Godwin’s Regard for
his second Wife--Misrepresentations touching the second Mrs.
Godwin--Childhood of Mary and Claire--Education of Godwin’s
Children and Step-children--Charles Clairmont’s Introduction
to Free Thought--Godwin’s Care to withhold Mary from Free
Thought--She is reared in Ignorance of her Mother’s Story--
The Book-shop in Hanway Street--The Godwins of The Polygon--
Their Migration to the City--The Godwins of Skinner Street.