The Prose Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley: Volume I (SHELLEY, PERCY BYSSHE//PROSE WORKS OF PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY) - Hardcover

Shelley, Percy Bysshe

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0198127480 ISBN 13: 9780198127482

Publisher: Clarendon Press, 1993

Synopsis

Volume I of this 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 are conservatively edited, with all changes from copy-text noted, along with revisions, deletions, and a historical collation of significant earlier editions. The Introduction provides a description of these editions, a full statement of editorial principles and practice, and an account of the relevant political and social context as Shelley knew and wrote about it. The commentary pays particular attention to the problems of dating the manuscripts, and 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. Location lists of rare first editions are comparably more complete than those provided in earlier bibliographies.

About this title

About the Author:

E. B. Murray is at University of Missouri at St Louis.

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 handsomely printed 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

About this edition

• Publisher: Clarendon Press
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0198127480
• ISBN 13: 9780198127482
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 644
• Editor: Murray E. B.