The Prose Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Volume I.

Shelley, P.B. ; Murray, E.B.

ISBN 10: 0198127480 / ISBN 13: 9780198127482

Published by Clarendon Press, Oxford, first edition, 1993, 1993

About this Item

Cloth, gilt cover-titles in frame, 8vo, 23 cm, lii, 592 pp, facs, map. From the introductory note: "This edition contains all of Shelley s prose writings except the early Gothic novels and the notes to Queen Mab and to Hellas. [Note- this Volume I contains the prose written before Shelley left England in early March, 1818 : material written later will fall within Volume II]. Significant among several items appearing here for the first time in any collected edition of Shelley s prose works are the Declaration in Chancery, On Zionism, On the Improvvissatore Sgricci, A Definition of Atheism, the Cry of War to the Greeks, and the fragment On Contraception. While An Answer to Leslie s 'A Short and Easy Method with the Deists has been previously published in disparate parts in collected editions, its reintegrated form, like most of the above works, has appeared only in periodical publication. On the other hand, it has seemed expedient to print the Letters Written in Geneva under that title, rather than continue to subsume them under the general head of the History of a Six Weeks Tour. The Letter on Richard Carlisle has been previously published only among the poet s letters, as has the fragment On Learning Languages', the short draft here entitled A Faustian Note associated with the latter is previously unpublished." From a review by Stuart Curran in the Keats-Shelley Journal ".quite simply, although it may seem unimaginable, this is an authoritative text. The expertise that informs this volume is as good as one gets: assured of all grounds, everywhere profiting from the skills of modem coworkers on the manuscripts, unobtrusively in charge of every detail of textual, historical, or critical complexity, and representing them all with an exemplary clarity and fidelity to fact. And where facts cannot be unambiguously ascertained, Murray has had the good sense to eschew the practices of almost all his predecessors and say so." Very Good.

Seller Inventory # ABE-31718

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Prose Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Volume I.
• Publisher: Clarendon Press, Oxford, first edition, 1993
• Publication Date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0198127480
• ISBN 13: 9780198127482
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Seller catalogs:
  • English Literature

About this title

Synopsis

Volume I of this major critical edition of Shelley's prose - the first since the Julian Edition (1926-30) - provides authoritative texts of The Necessity of Atheism, the Irish pamphlets, the vegetarian essays, The Assassins, A Refutation of Deism, On Christianity, the `Hermit of Marlow' political writings, and several reviews. The texts, which are based on first editions and manuscripts, were all written between Shelley's last months in Oxford in 1811 and his departure for Italy in 1818: they preserve his original punctuation and spelling, and textual notes give copy-text variants, revisions, and deletions.

In addition, the Introduction supplies a full account of previous editions, and places the prose pieces in their political context; and the commentary pays particular attention to the problems of dating the manuscripts. The commentary also contains more detailed copy-text descriptions, more thorough accounts of provenance, and more information on sources and allusions, than any previous edition of the works.

Review

`E. B. Murray's new edition is important. There has never been a satisfactory scholarly edition of the prose ... Its editor has mastered the often frighteningly complicated printed and manuscript materials, and offers all of Shelley's known prose works in a reasoned chronological arrangement ... This new edition promises to be a landmark in Shelley scholarship ... meticulously researched and beautifully printed book.'Times Literary Supplement

`This is the first volume of what will certainly be the definitive edition of Shelley's prose ... These commentaries synthesise a staggering body of published critical work and do the reader the courtesy of referring him or her to related primary and secondary materials ... More uncollected pieces are promised in this model of editorial scholarship.'Durham University Journal

'the Oxford Poetical Works is as near to being truly 'definitive' as we are entitled to expect ... characteristically helpful commentary ... One of the richest general indexes I have read, compiled by Carol B. Pearson, rounds off this important resource for the study of Byronism and the Byron corpus. Those who have found the editor's annotation in past volumes sometimes rather underdeveloped will be pleased that on this occasion he has consistently followed his own best standards of deftly combining hard information with suggestive critical insights. Comprehensiveness, is a legitimate scholarly goal, and the whole apparatus is so arranged that different readers will easily be able to select the categories most useful to them ... the texts are handsomelyprinted in readable and accessible form and no route to understanding and further exploration is left unopened.'Vincent Newey. Byron Journal '94

No serious work on Shelley should be done without having the new Prose Works in hand...This first volume of Shelley's prose is, as one would come to expect from the Clarendon Press, excellently produced. Professor Murray has done a thoroughly excellent job in contextualising and presenting Shelley's prose. If Shelley turns in his grave with the arrival of this volume, it would only be to sit up and read, with reverence and wonder, his own respectfully produced words. (English Studies)

A complete and accurate edition of the prose has...been a desideratum which this first volume of the Oxford edition has begun to satisfy...No one is a more meticulous textual scholar than Professor Murray, and the fruits of his labours are here imparted to the reader...the present volume is...simply essential. (RES New Series)

This is the first volume of what is likely to become the authoritative edition of Shelley's prose. What is new ... is the editorial scrupulousness and scholarly expertise with which these texts are presented ... this edition provides new information concerning the literary relations between Shelley and Mary Shelley ... This edition is not only essential reading for students of Shelley and his circle, but also a valuable resource for those interested in the wider issues of textual transmission and literary authorship in the Romantic period. (Pamela Clemit, University of Durham, Notes and Queries, June 1996)