Overview

The latest volume of the acclaimed and magisterial Hopkins Press edition of Percy Bysshe Shelley's poetry, covering the years 1818 to early 1820, the first phase of Shelley's Italian period. ""You talk Utopia,"" says the worldly Count Maddalo, reproaching the idealistic Julian in Julian and Maddalo. Inspired by conversations conducted on horseback near Venice between the two notorious exiled poets, Shelley and Byron, this poem was among the first of the masterpieces that Shelley wrote after moving with his family in March 1818 from England to post-Napoleonic Italy.  The fourth volume of the Hopkins Complete Poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley covers the years 1818–19 and part of 1820, when Britain was convulsed by popular agitation for the reform of Parliament and stifled by repressive laws against free speech. Among its other contents are The Cenci, an indictment of tyranny, domestic and political, probably the most actable of Romantic dramas; The Mask of Anarchy, the ""greatest poem of political protest ever written in English"" (too inflammatory to be published at the time); Peter Bell the Third, a brilliant satire on Wordsworth; the fiery sonnet ""England in 1819""; an eclogue for women's voices (Rosalind and Helen); playful, sophisticated songs (""Love's Philosophy"") and sad verses (""Stanzas, Written in dejection""). Shelley's publications received slashing reviews from politically motivated critics, who attacked his character and principles but acknowledged his poetic gifts. He broadened his scope and composed the most politically engaged poems of his maturity. To quote a Victorian editor, he ""ceased to be a subject of Time, and became a citizen of Eternity."" As in previous volumes, meticulously edited texts are accompanied by discussions of the poems' composition, the influences they reflect, their publication, reception, and critical history, and detailed records of textual variants. Appendixes range from Mary Shelley's editorial notes to jottings by Shelley drawn from a hitherto unrecognized source for The Cenci. Readers will find in volume four original research, fresh readings, new contexts, and discoveries—hallmarks of this acclaimed edition. Volumes 5, 6, and 8 are in preparation.

Full Product Details

Author:   Percy Bysshe Shelley ,  Neil Fraistat (Professor of English & Director, University of Maryland) ,  Nora Crook (Emerita Professor, Anglia Ruskin University)
Publisher:   Johns Hopkins University Press
Imprint:   Johns Hopkins University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.60cm , Height: 5.10cm , Length: 23.50cm
Weight:   1.520kg
ISBN:  

9781421451909

ISBN 10:   1421451905
Pages:   1104
Publication Date:   04 November 2025
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Not yet available  
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Table of Contents

List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Editorial Overview (by the volume and associate editors) Abbreviations TEXTS Rosalind and Helen, A Modern Eclogue; With Other Poems (edited by Stuart Curran), by Stuart Curran Advertisement Rosalind and Helen Lines Written Among the Euganean Hills, October, 1818 Hymn to Intellectual Beauty (1819 Version) Sonnet. Ozymandias Julian and Maddalo. A Conversation (edited by Nora Crook), by Nora Crook Preface Julian and Maddalo. A Conversation The Cenci. A Tragedy, in Five Acts (edited by Stuart Curran), by Stuart Curran Dedication Preface The Cenci Supplement: ""Note on Shakespeare"" (edited by Nora Crook), by Nora Crook The Mask of Anarchy Written on the Occasion of the Massacre at Manchester (edited by Stuart Curran), by Stuart Curran Supplements (edited by Nora Crook), by Nora Crook 1. ""Horses, oxen, have a home"" 2. ""From the cities where from caves"" Peter Bell the Third (edited by Stephen Behrendt), by Stephen Behrendt Dedication Prologue Peter Bell the Third Supplements (edited by Nora Crook), by Nora Crook 1. ""A daughter mother & a grandmother"" 2. ""Proteus Wordsworth who shall bind thee"" 3. ""A Poet of the finest water"" 4. ""Sucking hydras hashed in sulphur"" 5. ""There was a gorgeous marriage feast"" 6. ""At the creation of the Earth"" Two Political Poems of Late 1819 (edited by Stephen Behrendt), by Stephen Behrendt To S. and C. Supplements (edited by Nora Crook), by Nora Crook 1. ""Wolves & death-birds have been shot"" 2. ""Come, da una avita quercia"" England in 1819 Lyrics Given to Sophia Stacey, Winter 1819–Spring 1820 (edited by Nora Crook), by Nora Crook ""Thou art fair, and few are fairer"" Love's Philosophy (""The fountains mingle with the river"") ""The Fountains mingle with the River"" An Anacreontic (""The Fountains Mingle with the River"") Time long past Goodnight On a dead Violet To —— Athanase A Fragment (edited by Nora Crook), by Nora Crook Supplements: Athanase Draft 1. ""Prince Athanase as with long toil and travel"" 2. ""Prince Athanase had one beloved friend"" 3. ""'Twas at that season when the Earth upsprings"" Lyrics for ""Julian and Maddalo, and other Poems"" and Poem to Accompany The Cenci (edited by Nora Crook), by Nora Crook To —— [Constantia] (notebook version of November—1815) Lyrics for ""Julian and Maddalo, and other Poems"" Ollier Booklet November—1815 Supplement: ""That time is gone for ever—child—"" Misery.—a fragment Supplement: Draft fragment stanzas of Misery.—a fragment Stanzas Written in Dejection—December 1818, near Naples To a faded violet Woodberry MS To —— [the Lord Chancellor] Supplements: 1. ""By thy most impious Hell and all its terror"" 2. ""I had two babes—a sister & a brother"" Poem to Accompany The Cenci Woodberry MS To —— (""Corpses are cold in the tomb"") COMMENTARIES Rosalind and Helen, A Modern Eclogue; With Other Poems (by Stuart Curran), by Stuart Curran Rosalind and Helen Lines Written Among the Euganean Hills, October, 1818 Julian and Maddalo. A Conversation (by Nora Crook), by Nora Crook The Cenci. A Tragedy, in Five Acts (by Stuart Curran) (Supplement by Nora Crook), by Stuart Curran and Nora Crook Peter Bell the Third (by Stephen Behrendt) (Supplements by Nora Crook), by Stephen Behrendt and Nora Crook Two Political Poems of Late 1819 (by Stephen Behrendt) (Supplements by Nora Crook), by Stephen Behrendt and Nora Crook To S. and C. England in 1819 Lyrics given to Sophia Stacey, Winter 1819–Spring 1820 (by Nora Crook), by Nora Crook ""Thou art fair, and few are fairer"" ""The Fountains mingle with the River"" (three versions) Time Long Past Goodnight On a dead Violet To —— Athanase A Fragment (and Supplements) (by Nora Crook), by Nora Crook Lyrics for ""Julian and Maddalo, and other Poems"" and Poem to Accompany The Cenci (by Nora Crook), by Nora Crook Lyrics for ""Julian and Maddalo, and other Poems"" To —— [Constantia] (notebook version of November—1815) Ollier Booklet November—1815 (and Supplement) Misery.—a fragment (and Supplement) Stanzas Written in Dejection— December 1818, near Naples Woodberry MS To —— [the Lord Chancellor] (and Supplements) Poem to Accompany The Cenci Woodberry MS To —— (""Corpses are cold in the tomb"") HISTORICAL COLLATIONS Rosalind and Helen Lines Written Among the Euganean Hills Julian and Maddalo The Cenci The Mask of Anarchy Peter Bell the Third Two Political Poems of Late 1819 Lyrics Given to Sophia Stacey, Winter 1819–Spring 1820 Athanase Lyrics for ""Julian and Maddalo, and other Poems"" and Poem to Accompany The Cenci APPENDIXES A. Mary W. Shelley's Notes from Her 1840 Edition of The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley I. Note on The Cenci II. Note on the Poems of 1818 III. Note on the Poems of 1819 B. The Cenci: Ancillary Material I. Shelley's Reading Notes for The Cenci II. Mary W. Shelley's 1819 Translation, ""Relation of the Death of the Family of the Cenci"" III. Shelley's Corrections to the Taaffe Copy of The Cenci IV. The Cenci Errata List in MWS's hand Index of Titles Index of First Lines Editor Biographies Notes Index

Reviews

CPPBS 7 is set to become a model for editing modern poetry manuscripts. It strikes a difficult balance between philological rigor and scholarly comprehensiveness on the one hand and readability and usability at different levels of expertise on the other. Textual critics and students of Shelley's poetry will find it equally indispensable, but it will also serve as an important reference work for Mary Shelley scholars. --European Romantic Review [I]t is tremendously exciting to have access to a resource that provides such an intimate look into the poet's world and his creative process. --The Year's Work in English Studies [T]his volume is a triumph, it is breathtaking, it is monumental, it is a summa. --Byron Journal A monumental edition--the Shelley edition for our time. --Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America A scholarly delight. --Romanticism on the Net An indispensable reference work for all who study Shelley. --Studies in Romanticism Donald Reiman and Neil Fraistat bring to their new edition an unrivaled knowledge of the textual evidence and a superb grasp of the important historical and critical issues. Their presentation of and commentary on the poetry Shelley produced up through his elopement with Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin in July 1814 is clarifying and revealing in itself and encourages the highest possible expectations for the volumes to follow. Their editorial principles, centered around the objective of offering critical redactions of single versions of all the poems arranged chronologically in the order in which Shelley released these versions to a particular public, are scrupulously conceived and meticulously applied. Scholars, students, and general readers of Shelley's poetry have reason to celebrate. --William Keach, Brown University, praise for Volume 1 Exciting revelations, new connections, and editorial discoveries abound in volume seven, which is testament to the brilliance of one of our greatest scholars and editors of the Shelleys, Nora Crook. --Keats-Shelley Review 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 In 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. --London Review of Books Like the previous [The Complete Poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley] editions, Crook's latest contribution is both indispensable and delightful, a resource to be prized not only for its careful and authoritative presentation of Shelley's poetry but also for the incisive commentary and contextualization Crook provides throughout....the twin hearts of this edition are, of course, ""Texts"" and ""Commentaries,"" the former providing the now-definitive texts of each work and the latter a collection of acute analyses that represents the lion's share of this volume's thousand pages. In a slight but useful departure from the earlier volumes in this series, each commentary opens with a headnote that provides item-specific notes as well as information about the text's genesis and transmission and critical history. --Romantic Circles Quite possibly the most significant publication among this year's Romantic studies, The Complete Poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Volume Seven, edited by Nora Crook, is a magisterial scholarly edition of Shelley's posthumously published poems, including ""The Triumph of Life"" and many other fragments that Mary Shelley first edited, including some of his most beloved shorter lyrics. Part of the ongoing editorial project now directed by Crook and Neil Fraistat, Volume Seven arrives as a stunning and indispensable book, modeling both textual stewardship and critical acumen. --Studies in English Literature Rigorously, enthusiastically, and innovatively edited, this volume has brought excitement and zest to my Shelley-reading life. --Australian Book Review The detail and precision of the textual editing here are exemplary: the publication history of the poems, along with the tangled manuscript evidence behind and alongside the original volumes, is dealt with clearly and (when need be) decisively, to produce a hugely authoritative--as well as huge--edition. --Times Literary Supplement These youthful poems prove that Shelley's enthusiasm for political solutions to moral problems was neither intellectual fakery nor aristocratic affection. --Sewanee Review This edition will undoubtedly be indispensable for the serious study of Shelley's poetry. --Review of English Studies This is a critical volume of Shelley's works for the twenty-first century--in short, a scholarly masterpiece. No academic library should be without it. --Choice This latest installment of The Complete Poetry is nothing less than a landmark in Shelley studies: comprehensive and reliable, necessary and illuminating. --Keats-Shelley Journal This outstanding installment of an epoch-making edition of Shelley's verse will transform the opportunities afforded to emerging Shelley scholars. --Review of English Studies What makes this volume so exceptional (like its predecessors) is not only the state-of-the-art editing, but also the knowledgeable commentaries that give information on the poems' composition, possible sources and influences, publication, and most welcome, their reception history. . . . This gigantic editorial project cannot be praised highly enough. --Zeitschrift fuer Anglistik und Amerikanistik Will almost certainly be the standard in Shelley scholarship. --Studies in English Literature With volume seven raising the bar once again, this series is the gold standard for Shelley scholarship. Its expert and illuminating readings are peerless. --The Coleridge Bulletin

Author Information

Nora Crook is emerita professor of English literature at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge. Neil Fraistat is emeritus professor of English at the University of Maryland, and former president of the Keats-Shelley Association of America. Stephen C. Behrendt is the George Holmes Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Nebraska. He is the coeditor of Romanticism and Women Poets: Opening the Doors of Reception and Approaches to Teaching British Women Poets of the Romantic Period. Stuart Curran was the Vartan Gregorian Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania (emeritus) and the past editor of the Keats-Shelley Journal.

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