Important political and social philosopher of the Romantic period, husband of the feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft and father of Mary (Wollstonecraft Godwin) Shelley. In fact, it was Godwin's fame as a radical social thinker that attracted the attention of Percy Bysshe Shelley, who on a visit to Godwin first met Mary Godwin, whom he would eventually marry. William Godwin's liberal social theories had a significant effect on his daughter's novel Frankenstein; he himself wrote a couple of novels with pronounced Gothic features, most notably Caleb Williams and St. Leon.
Sites:
William Godwin Archive
Includes biographical and bibliographical information, as well as the etext of Political Justice, Godwin's major work which lays out many of the ideas given fictional treatment in his Gothic novels. [Anarchist Archives, Pitzer College] (And here, for good measure, is another etext of Political Justice.)
Biographical essay
[Andrew McCann, U Melbourne; Literary Encyclopedia]
Brief biographical note
[Gothic Labyrinth]
Brief biographical note
[Columbia Encyclopedia, Bartleby]
Brief biographical note
[John W. Cousins, A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature, 1910]
Bibliography
[FantasticFiction]
Portraits
[National Portrait Gallery, London]
(ToC) or 
