Helen Maria Williams (1761-1827), English poet, novelist, and chronicler of the French Revolution, here vividly recounts her experiences in France during the Terror. Arrested in the fall of 1793, Williams records with passion and sorrow the degeneration of the Revolution into chaos and murder. She sketches the colorful personalities of her friends and acquaintances (Madame Roland, Charlotte Corday, Georges-Jacques Danton) and enemies (Maximilien Robespierre, Louis-Antoine de St. Just, Jean Paul Marat), while all the time displaying her enduring optimism that Revolution would eventually...

Helen Maria Williams's epic poem "Peru", first published in 1784, movingly recounts the story of Francisco Pizarro's brutal conquest and exploitation of the Incas and their subsequent revolt against Spain. Like William Wordsworth, who revised "The Prelude" over the course of his life, Williams revisited her epic several times within almost four decades, transforming it with each revision. It began as an ambitious poetic blueprint for revolution - in terms of politics, gender, religion and genre. By the time it appeared in 1823, under the title "Peruvian Tales" in her last poetry collection,...