William Godwin: his Friends and Contemporaries
Ch. VII. 1806-1811
William Godwin to John Fairley, 5 October 1811
“Skinner St., Oct. 5, 1811.
“Dear Fairley,—Would you
have any objections to call on my part on Mr
Constable the bookseller, to inquire of him personally the
answer to a letter I addressed to him last week, on the subject of which I feel
the greatest impatience? This letter, if you think you want one, may serve you
as a passport.
“The purpose of my letter above mentioned, was to
solicit Mr Constable to receive into his
house for a short time, as the best possible introduction to the world of
business, Charles Clairmont, the son of
Mrs Godwin. . . . I gave my young
man a high char-![]()
| CHARLES CLAIRMONT’S APPRENTICESHIP. | 191 |
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acter in my letter to
Mr Constable for prepossessing manners, and a diligent
and accommodating temper. I observed that I had kept him for six years at the
Charter House, one of our most celebrated schools, not without proportionable
profit, and that he has once been several months under one of our most
celebrated arithmeticians. You may think how interesting it is to us, at our
time of life, and with our infirmities, to look forward to introducing into our
concern a short time hence, a young man perfectly accomplished, who has been
initiated in one of the first houses, and whose interests would, by the
circumstance of his relationship, be almost necessarily coincident with our
own. . . . Believe me, etc.,
Charles Gaulis Clairmont (1795-1850)
The son of Charles Gaulis [Clairmont] and Mary Jane Clairmont [Godwin]; he was
apprenticed to Archibald Constable in Edinburgh (1811) and from 1816 lived mostly on the
Continent, settling in Vienna.
Archibald Constable (1774-1827)
Edinburgh bookseller who published the
Edinburgh Review and works
of Sir Walter Scott; he went bankrupt in 1826.
John Fairley (1823 fl.)
Edinburgh manufacturer of umbrellas and parasols who acted as William Godwin's book-agent
in Scotland. He appears to have retired from business in 1823.
Mary Jane Godwin [née Vial] (1768-1841)
The second wife of William Godwin, whom she married in 1801 after a previous relationship
in which was born her daughter Claire Clairmont (1798-1879). With her husband she was a
London bookseller.
