Percy Bysshe Shelley

Reprint of the original, first published in 1859.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1859.

Unver nderter Nachdruck der Originalausgabe von 1866.

Unver nderter Nachdruck der Originalausgabe von 1866.

The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I (1914) compiles some of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s best-known works as a leading poet, playwright, and political thinker of the nineteenth century. As a leading figure among the English Romantics, Shelley was a master of poetic form and tradition who recognized the need for radical change in the social order. His work has influenced such writers and intellectuals as Karl Marx, Mahatma Gandhi, W. B. Yeats, and George Bernard Shaw. In Prometheus Unbound, a lyrical drama, Shelley explores the story of Prometheus, a figure from Greek mythology who stole the power of fire in defiance of the gods. Giving fire to the human race, he sacrifices himself to an eternity of torture. For Shelley, Prometheus represented the power of revolutionary action, important to the poet as a follower of radical anarchist William Godwin. The Masque of Anarchy is a political poem written in response to the Peterloo Massacre of 1819, when a British cavalry unit attacked a group of protestors in Manchester, injuring hundreds and killing eighteen. Adonais is an elegy commemorating the life of Romantic poet John Keats, whose death from tuberculosis at the age of 25 inspired Shelley to compose one of his finest literary works. A pastoral elegy in the tradition of John Milton’s Lycidas, the poem declares “‘With me / Died Adonais; till the Future dares / Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be / An echo and a light unto eternity!’” Immortalizing Keats, Shelley chillingly foreshadows his own tragic death, which ended his promising career only a year later. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I is a classic of English literature reimagined for modern readers.

During his short and restless life, Percy Bysshe Shelley produced a great number of poems, three verse plays and numerous prose works, as well as many essays in which he propounded his philosophical views and radical political ideas. These, together with his highly unconventional itinerant life and his literary connections, make him one of the most important and intriguing figures in British Romanticism. This volume provides a generous selection of his poetry, from the sonnet ‘Ozymandias’ to famous lyrics such as ‘Ode to the West Wind’ and ‘Lines Written among the Euganean Hills’, to the longer poems of his maturity, Adonais and Epipsychidion, all thoroughly annotated and presented in chronological order.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1866.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1866.

The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume III (1914) compiles some of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s best-known works as a leading poet, playwright, and political thinker of the nineteenth century. As a leading figure among the English Romantics, Shelley was a master of poetic form and tradition who recognized the need for radical change in the social order. His work has influenced such writers and intellectuals as Karl Marx, Mahatma Gandhi, W. B. Yeats, and George Bernard Shaw. In this final volume of Shelley’s collected works, the poet’s skill as a translator is on full display. Included within are translations from the Greek of Homer and Plato, from the Latin of Vergil, from the Spanish of Calderon, from the German of Goethe, and from the Italian of Dante, to name only a few. In addition, The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume III contains some of Shelley’s earliest works as a poet, such as Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire—written with his sister and originally published in 1810—and other examples of juvenilia. Many of these poems remained unpublished upon Shelley’s death, including “Eyes: A Fragment,” which made its first appearance in an 1870 edition of Shelley’s works published by William Michael Rossetti. In this poem, a deceptively simple lyric, Shelley conflates language and vision to capture the communication made possible only through silence, which allows one “look [to] light a waste of years, / Darting the beam that conquers cares / Through the cold shower of tears.” In these fragments, songs, translations, and youthful verses, Shelley demonstrates his workmanlike ability with language, a tirelessness fueled with a passion as thrilling as it must be rare. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume III is a classic of English literature reimagined for modern readers.

The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume II (1914) compiles some of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s best-known works as a leading poet, playwright, and political thinker of the nineteenth century. As a leading figure among the English Romantics, Shelley was a master of poetic form and tradition who recognized the need for radical change in the social order. His work has influenced such writers and intellectuals as Karl Marx, Mahatma Gandhi, W. B. Yeats, and George Bernard Shaw. In “Ozymandias,” Shelley employs the language of archaeology to mask one of the greatest political poems of all time. The sonnet depicts a statue of an ancient king discovered in the Egyptian desert. Barely visible above the shifting sand, its pedestal reads “‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: / Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’” Juxtaposed with this language of bluster, the three remaining lines dispel the myth of power with expert precision: “Nothing beside remains. Round the decay / Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare / The lone and level sands stretch far away.” For Shelley, who identifies with the knowing, mischievous sculptor, the dominion of kings is nothing but hubris, a grain of sand in the vast expanse of time. In “To a Skylark,” Shelley immortalizes the song of a bird heard once and remembered forever: “The blue deep thou wingest, / And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.” As he longs to know the bird in order to mimic the celebratory nature of its song, Shelley reaches an understanding of the human condition, the tragic temperament of those who “look before and after, / And pine for what is not.” Unlike the poet, who must struggle to achieve his song, the skylark soars and sings and remains above the world of men, whose “sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.” With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume II is a classic of English literature reimagined for modern readers.

The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I (1914) compiles some of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s best-known works as a leading poet, playwright, and political thinker of the nineteenth century. As a leading figure among the English Romantics, Shelley was a master of poetic form and tradition who recognized the need for radical change in the social order. His work has influenced such writers and intellectuals as Karl Marx, Mahatma Gandhi, W. B. Yeats, and George Bernard Shaw. In Prometheus Unbound, a lyrical drama, Shelley explores the story of Prometheus, a figure from Greek mythology who stole the power of fire in defiance of the gods. Giving fire to the human race, he sacrifices himself to an eternity of torture. For Shelley, Prometheus represented the power of revolutionary action, important to the poet as a follower of radical anarchist William Godwin. The Masque of Anarchy is a political poem written in response to the Peterloo Massacre of 1819, when a British cavalry unit attacked a group of protestors in Manchester, injuring hundreds and killing eighteen. Adonais is an elegy commemorating the life of Romantic poet John Keats, whose death from tuberculosis at the age of 25 inspired Shelley to compose one of his finest literary works. A pastoral elegy in the tradition of John Milton’s Lycidas, the poem declares “‘With me / Died Adonais; till the Future dares / Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be / An echo and a light unto eternity!’” Immortalizing Keats, Shelley chillingly foreshadows his own tragic death, which ended his promising career only a year later. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I is a classic of English literature reimagined for modern readers.

The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume II (1914) compiles some of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s best-known works as a leading poet, playwright, and political thinker of the nineteenth century. As a leading figure among the English Romantics, Shelley was a master of poetic form and tradition who recognized the need for radical change in the social order. His work has influenced such writers and intellectuals as Karl Marx, Mahatma Gandhi, W. B. Yeats, and George Bernard Shaw. In “Ozymandias,” Shelley employs the language of archaeology to mask one of the greatest political poems of all time. The sonnet depicts a statue of an ancient king discovered in the Egyptian desert. Barely visible above the shifting sand, its pedestal reads “‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: / Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’” Juxtaposed with this language of bluster, the three remaining lines dispel the myth of power with expert precision: “Nothing beside remains. Round the decay / Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare / The lone and level sands stretch far away.” For Shelley, who identifies with the knowing, mischievous sculptor, the dominion of kings is nothing but hubris, a grain of sand in the vast expanse of time. In “To a Skylark,” Shelley immortalizes the song of a bird heard once and remembered forever: “The blue deep thou wingest, / And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.” As he longs to know the bird in order to mimic the celebratory nature of its song, Shelley reaches an understanding of the human condition, the tragic temperament of those who “look before and after, / And pine for what is not.” Unlike the poet, who must struggle to achieve his song, the skylark soars and sings and remains above the world of men, whose “sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.” With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume II is a classic of English literature reimagined for modern readers.

Proserpine and Midas (1820) is a collection of plays by Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Combining Mary’s blank verse and Percy’s lyric poems, the Shelleys offer two groundbreaking retellings of classical myth. Together, the plays illuminate the working relationship of a husband and wife who helped define Romanticism, highlighting their individual talents in the process. While Proserpine was published in 1832 in The Winter’s Wreath, a London periodical, Mary Shelley was unable to find a publisher for Midas, which remained unprinted until the twentieth century. Ceres, the goddess of agriculture, leaves her daughter Proserpine in the care of two trusted nymphs. While the women are out picking flowers, Proserpine is kidnapped by Pluto, the dreaded lord of the underworld. Distraught, Ceres laments the loss of her beloved girl and appeals to Jove for assistance. Proserpine is a retelling of an ancient myth which remains mostly faithful to its source while emphasizing the feminist qualities of its tragic content. In Midas, the wild god Pan is defeated in a musical competition by Apollo, god of the sun. Determined to claim victory, he arranges a new contest with King Midas as judge. Although his power on earth is unmatched by any human, Midas soon learns that to play at divinity one risks reaping the greatest of sorrows. Proserpine and Midas is a masterful take on two of ancient Greece’s central myths. Using their talents for narrative and song, the Shelleys adapt these well-known stories for the nineteenth century and beyond, showcasing their sociopolitical significance in a world defined by the democratic ideals of the Greeks. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Proserpine and Midas is a classic of English literature reimagined for modern readers.

History of a Six Weeks’ Tour (1817) is a travelogue by Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Composed of journal entries, letters, and a poem, History of a Six Weeks’ Tour was published anonymously with a preface by Percy. Detailing their stay in Switzerland during the legendary “year without a summer,” the travelogue was Mary’s first published work and remains an invaluable text for the study of English Romanticism. When Percy Bysshe Shelley met Mary Godwin, he had initially planned to acquaint himself with her father, a famous philosopher. Soon, however, the pair fell in love and eloped with Claire Clairmont, Mary’s stepsister. They journeyed through France, Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands before returning home with little money and without the support of their families. In 1816, following the death of their first child, Percy and Mary travelled with Claire to Geneva, Switzerland, where the infamous Lord Byron had rented a villa along the shores of Lake Geneva. Due to a volcanic eruption in Indonesia, temperatures in Europe and throughout the world plummeted, creating the conditions for the “year without a summer.” Forced to remain indoors for much of their stay, the group soon grew tired of telling one another folk tales and ghost stories to pass the time. On a whim, Byron suggested they all write their own works of fiction, igniting the spark for some of the defining texts of the Romantic era. Having never published her own writing before, Mary unwittingly began mapping out her masterpiece. Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus appeared in print two years later, changing the course of English literature forever. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley’s History of a Six Weeks’ Tour is a classic of English literature reimagined for modern readers.