To the reader it may appear at first sight as if this detail of the preceding life of Mr. Falkland were foreign to my history. Alas! I know from bitter experience that it is otherwise. (66)

Collins' story, which comprises the first of three volumes of Caleb Williams, details the backstory of Mr. Falkland, the mysterious employer of Caleb as detailed in the short introduction to the tale. This story is unique in terms of embedded narratives because it begins as Collins recounting what happened in the past, but Collins fades out and the story is narrated in the third person like the rest of the novel. This story borders on being purely explanatory, since the events of the narrative do not directly influence the path of the story but only plant seeds in Caleb which will later predicate his actions. However, tropes such as the difficulty of determining truth which pervade Collins' narrative are also apparent in the novel as a whole. Caleb appropriately does not believe Collins' version of the Tyrrel's murder, and in doing so casts thematic doubt as to the belief of his own story. The novel ends:

I began these memoirs with the idea of vindicating my character. I have now no character that I wish to vindicate: but I will finish them that thy story may be fully understood; and that, if those errors of thy life be known which thou so ardently desiredst to conceal, the world may at least not hear and repeat a half-told and mangled tale. (434)

Caleb's acceptance of his tale as only being "half" the story is a thematic reference to Collins' narrative which was also, as we later found out, only half the story. This narrative has, therefore, a low-level dramaturgical relationship with the main narrative.

In "Reading Beginnings and Endings," Peter Rabinowitz writes:

The concerntrating quality of a detail in a privileged position can be demonstrated by looking at Anna Karenina. The novel has a large cast of characters - so large that we might hardly notice Anna's arrival were the novel not named for her. But because of the title, we know from the beginning that we should look at the other characters in their relationship to her, rather than vice versa. (301)

Collins' narrative relates to the title in that we know that Falkland's story is only important in its relationship to Caleb. While that would certainly become clear in volumes two and three, Godwin, like Tolstoy, relies on his title to predicate our reading of the opening scenes in which the main character does not play a prominent role. The reader is not supposed to identify with Falkland, as one might in a novel entitled, say, "The Adventures of Mr. Falkland," but has to concentrate on the narrative's effect, counterintuitively, on Caleb.

This reading is complicated by Godwin's subtitle, "Things as They Are," which also helps the reader in Collins' story. The implication of the subtitle is that the narrative will eventually make some point about what happens if things are not "as they are" and would focus the reader's attention on possible discrepencies in the story that is presented. Truth is a fickle matter throughout Caleb Williams and the trope of things perhaps being differently from how they are presented is one that appears in Collins' narrative, but is not expounded upon until Caleb bursts on the scene in volumes two and three.