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Caleb Williams

I completed Villette the day before last. I was intrigued and immersed, but I left off with a dissatisfied feeling. I concluded that mid-century novels are not to my taste right now. They are too much about a suffering creature, her tormentors, and her triumph through perfect virtue. 

Spaniels were popular dogs at the time. There was one in Villette, actually, that was positioned like a female rival, and I know women's hairstyles popular during that time mimicked the spaniel's ears. 

Caleb Williams, written by William Godwin, father of Mary Shelley, is more interesting to me, written in the voice of the early century, preoccupied with ideas like those of other early Romantic writings. The story is about a fame-seeker and popular curiosity. It relates interestingly to modern media.
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