Description
Book SynopsisThis early verse, even in its most abandoned forays into Sensibility, the Gothic, political satire, and vulgarity-perhaps especially in these most apparently idiosyncratic gestures-provides telling access to its own cultural moment, as well as to Shelley's art and thought in general."-from the Editorial Overview
Trade ReviewIn gathering together all his earliest pieces, including some that have been unavailable in standard editions of the collected poetry, Donald Reiman and Neil Fraistat's meticulously edited volume brings out the aims Shelley had for his verse, and the effects he sought, which remained surprisingly uniform. -- Laura Quinney London Review of Books Will become an indispensable reference work for all who study Shelley... The first volume... auspiciously inaugurates Shelley studies for a new millennium. -- Morton D. Paley Studies in Romanticism If ever an edition deserved the chimerical epithet 'definitive' this is it. A more comprehensive collation of relevant materials, or a more sensitive, sensible, and reader-friendly presentation of evidence, is inconceivable. All Shelleyans owe Reiman and Fraistat a debt of gratitude. The edition this volume inaugurates will be an essential acquisition for academic libraries and should become the standard scholarly reference for all citations of Shelley's poems. The Wordsworth Circle The Johns Hopkins University Press has come out with the first volume of what will almost certainly be the standard in Shelley scholarship, The Complete Poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley, beautifully edited by Donald H. Reiman and Neil Fraistat. What is so special about this edition, as we can see in this volume of Shelley's early writing, is that it presents the poems in their historical context, which turns out to mean so much more than the phrase usually does. We see not only the traditional drafts and revisions but also thorough discussions of publication histories, origins, influences, and receptions by Shelley's contemporaries. It is more than a reader hopes for in editorial scholarship. -- Susan Morgan Studies in English Literature The editors' impressive combined knowledge, theoretical understanding, and practical skills add up to a brilliant first installment of what will undoubtedly be a monumental edition-the Shelley edition for our time. -- Steven E. Jones Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America This edition will undoubtedly be indispensable for the serious study of Shelley's poetry. -- P.M.S. Dawson Review of English Studies These youthful poems prove that Shelley's enthusiasm for political solutions to moral problems was neither intellectual fakery nor aristocratic affection. -- J.T. Barbarese Sewanee Review
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Editorial Overview
Abbreviations
Texts
Original Poetry: by Victor and Cazire
The Wandering Jew; or, The Victim of the External Avenger
Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson; Being Poems Found
Amongst the Papers of the Noted Female who Attempted the Life of the King in 1786
Poems from St. Irvyne; or, The Rosicrucian: A Romance
The Devil's Walk
Ten Early Poems (1809-1814)
Commentaries
Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire
The Wandering Jew; or, The Victim of the External Avenger
Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson
Poems from St. Irvyne; or, The Rosicrucian
The Devil's Walk
Ten Early Poems (1809-1814)
Historical Collations
Introduction
Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire
The Wandering Jew; or, The Victim of the External Avenger
Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson
Poems from St. Irvyne; or, The Rosicrucian
The Devil's Walk
Ten Early Poems (1809-1814)
Appendixes
Introduction
A. Latin School Exercises
B. Prose Treated as Poems
C. Lost Works
D. Dubia
E. Misattributions
Index of Titles
Index of First Lines
