PREFACE. The THE plan on which the present edition of Shelley's poetry is arranged does not differ essentially from that adopted in my Library edition published by Messrs. Reeves and Turner, and in the unannotated text in two volumes issued by the same publishers. volumes published or printed in Shelley's lifetime are reproduced in chronological order, in the main. In view of the persistent vogue and historic importance of Queen Mab, it has been restored to its place at the beginning of the series; but the earlier volume of verse, Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson, not being in any sense deserving of consideration, is given in the appendix. The series of Shelley's own publications is followed by that of the chief posthumous poems of his maturity, and these again by his posthumous minor poems, each series arranged chronologically. The translations follow; and then the appendix of juvenilia. The fragments are not separated from the complete poems, but take their places amongst them in order of date. The text being no longer the subject of such controversy as raged for years over it, I have given it in the form in which I think it may be regarded as established, and have not thought it necessary to encumber with contro versial notes what aims at being a popular edition, or to distract the reader's attention by the insertion of such an array of variorum readings as can be given when the object is to furnish students with a complete critical apparatus. As far as possible, one system of spelling and punctuation has been adopted throughout; and an endeavour has been made to render the edition as characteristic in these respects as might be, compatibly with the convenience of contemporary readers. Those who wish to do more than apprehend and enjoy the net result of all the poetical work left by Shelley, and who desire to form their own opinions on the processes of his mind as shown in successive cancellings and substitutions, or to have before them the history of the corruptions and restorations of his text and the reasons for and against such and such readings, are referred to my Library edition. In the present edition there is but little of such matter; and the notes aim at being illustrative rather than controversial, and that within very modest limits. In the Memoir I have sought to give in a brief space an accurate account of the events of Shelley's life, and particularly of his employments in literature, and to convey to the reader a faithful impression of his character and the characters of those with whom he was most closely connected. Here again, it seems superfluous to make any display of authorities. The biographical notes left by Mrs. Shelley, the Lives by Medwin and Hogg, The Shelley Memorials, Trelawny's Recollections, the memoirs published by Mr. W. M. Rossetti, the authoritative biography which Professor Edward Dowden wrote at the request of Sir Percy and Lady Shelley, and my own extensive collection of original papers relating to Shelley, have been drawn on indifferently. As regards the sources of the body of poetry contained in this first volume, a few words will suffice. The authority for Queen Mab and its voluminous notes, written or compiled by Shelley, is his own privately printed edition of 1813.. Alastor and the minor poems, ending with the First Part of The Damon of the World, are the component parts of a little volume which he had printed at Weybridge with the title Alastor; or, the Spirit of Solitude: and Other Poems, and the date 1816. By the time that volume was prepared he had grown very critical towards Queen Mab, of which he revised elaborately the first, second, eighth and ninth sections, making out of them a fresh poem in two parts, which he called The Damon of the World. The first part was published with Alastor as "a fragment." The second part remained in manuscript till 1876, when I printed it from his own copy of Queen Mab (in my collection), on which the manuscript revision was made. The authority for Mont Blanc: Lines written in the Vale of Chamouni, is a small volume mainly of prose by Mrs. Shelley, but partly Shelley's, and with this fine poem at the close: the book is called History of a Six Weeks' Tour through a Part of France, Switzerland, Germany and Holland: with Letters descriptive of a Sail round the Lake of Geneva, and of the Glaciers of Chamouni (1817). H. B. F. |