William Godwin s Mandeville was described as his best novel by Percy Shelley, who sent a copy to Lord Byron, and it was immediately recognized by its other admirers as a work of unique power. Written one year after the battle of Waterloo and set in an earlier revolutionary period between the execution of Charles I and the Restoration, Mandeville is a novel of psychological warfare. The narrative begins with Mandeville s rescue from the traumatic aftermath of the Ulster Rebellion of 1641 and proceeds through his early education by a fanatical Presbyterian minister to his persecution at Winchester school, his constant (and not unjustified) paranoia, and his confinement in an asylum. Mandeville s final, desperate attempt to prevent his sister s marriage to his enemy ends with his disfiguration, which also defaces endings based on settlement or reconciliation. The novel s events have many resonances with Godwin s own period. The historical appendices offer contemporary reviews, including Shelley s letter to Godwin praising Mandeville, material explaining the novel s complex historical background, and contemporary writings on war, madness, and trauma.
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