recovery of several pieces which are of great value in the study of Shelley's development in his formative period. To all these editors, and also to the group of biographers and writers of reminiscences who have contributed information of their own or the result of researches, the debt of the present edition is very great, for it attempts to summarize the labors of more than half a century on Shelley's text, and on his biography so far as the biography is bound up with the text. In dealing with this whole body of Shelley literature I have treated it precisely as I should do in the case of Shakspere, thinking that what concerns Shelley belongs now to the world, and that contributions made to our knowledge of him are made for the world's sake. I have endeavored to give specific credit in all particular cases of direct obligation, and I trust that I have omitted no acknowledgment which may be thought due. It is nevertheless due to myself to say that where original sources were I have used them, and this may account for less frequent mention of preceding editions than might be thought natural. open to me, I have the pleasure of acknowledging in particular the kindness of Mr. C. W. Frederickson of Brooklyn, who placed his very complete Shelley library entirely at my disposal. From the printed books in this collection I derived the only addition to Shelley's text here made, the interesting par agraph restored to the preface of "Hellas;" and from the manuscripts the extracts from unpublished letters of Shelley in the NOTES and several variorum readings of the text. The variorum readings of the Harvard College manuscripts now first find a place in an edition of Shelley, though they were edited by me in a separate publication for the College some time ago, and from that source partly utilized by Dowden. To Forman, in addition to what has been already acknowledged, I owe the variorum readings of the text of a few poems published in Hunt's "Literary Pocket-Books," of which no copies are known in this country; and, in connection with this, it may be said that imperfections in the references to the criticisms in Hunt's "Examiner" are due to the incompleteness of the files open to me. To Mr. Frederickson I am also indebted for information and advice in points of detail. The portrait which accompanies this edition is after a chalk-drawing from the original portrait at Boscombe, for which I have the pleasure of expressing my thanks to Lady Shelley. GEORGE E. WOODBERRY. BEVERLY, MASS., November 7, 1892. MEMOIR In a small southwestern room of the old-fashioned country house named Field Place, in Sussex, there stands over the fireplace this inscription: "Shrine of the dawning speech and thought Of Shelley, sacred be To all who bow where Time has brought Here Percy Bysshe Shelley was born, on Saturday, August 4, 1792. He was the eldest child of Timothy and Elizabeth (Pilfold) Shelley. In this home four younger he had for playmates, as he grew up, sisters, and a brother the youngest of all: and on their memories were imprinted some scenes of his early days. He was fond of them, and as a schoolboy, when they came in to dessert, would take them on his knee and tell them romantic stories out of books on which his own imagination was fed; or he would declaim Latin for his father's pleasure; sometimes he led them on tramps through the fields, dropping his little sister over inconvenient fences, or he romped with them in the garden, not without accident, upsetting his baby brother in the strawberry bed, and being reproached by him as "bad Bit." St. Leonard's wood, off to the northeast of the house, was traditionally inhabited by an old Dragon and a headless Spectre, and there was a fabulous Great Tortoise in |