Reviews
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.
Will become an indispensable reference work for all who study Shelley... The first volume... auspiciously inaugurates Shelley studies for a new millennium.
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 Johns Hopkins University Press has come out with the first volume of what will almost certainly be the standard in Shelley scholarship, The Complete Poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley, beautifully edited by Donald H. Reiman and Neil Fraistat. What is so special about this edition, as we can see in this volume of Shelley's early writing, is that it presents the poems in their historical context, which turns out to mean so much more than the phrase usually does. We see not only the traditional drafts and revisions but also thorough discussions of publication histories, origins, influences, and receptions by Shelley's contemporaries. It is more than a reader hopes for in editorial scholarship.
The editors' impressive combined knowledge, theoretical understanding, and practical skills add up to a brilliant first installment of what will undoubtedly be a monumental edition—the Shelley edition for our time.
This edition will undoubtedly be indispensable for the serious study of Shelley's poetry.
These youthful poems prove that Shelley's enthusiasm for political solutions to moral problems was neither intellectual fakery nor aristocratic affection.
To call this edition magisterial is to fall back on too lax a term of praise: it is rather a monument of precise, assured erudition in total command of the poems and almost two centuries of commentary on them, an awesome achievement that as it unfolds will replace all previous texts of Shelley's poetry as well as the whole of their contexts. I cannot imagine it being done by anyone else—or, for that matter, better.
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.
The Complete Poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley is a much needed work and Reiman and Fraistat are the best possible people to have done it. The research, knowledge, experience, and general thoughtfulness that have gone into the project are truly impressive. It will be a landmark event of Shelley scholarship.
Book Details
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Editorial Overview
Abbreviations
Texts
Original Poetry: by Victor and Cazire
The Wandering Jew; or, The Victim of the External Avenger
Posthumous Fragments of Margaret
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Editorial Overview
Abbreviations
Texts
Original Poetry: by Victor and Cazire
The Wandering Jew; or, The Victim of the External Avenger
Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson; Being Poems Found
Amongst the Papers of the Noted Female who Attempted the Life of the King in 1786
Poems from St. Irvyne; or, The Rosicrucian: A Romance
The Devil's Walk
Ten Early Poems (1809-1814)
Commentaries
Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire
The Wandering Jew; or, The Victim of the External Avenger
Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson
Poems from St. Irvyne; or, The Rosicrucian
The Devil's Walk
Ten Early Poems (1809-1814)
Historical Collations
Introduction
Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire
The Wandering Jew; or, The Victim of the External Avenger
Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson
Poems from St. Irvyne; or, The Rosicrucian
The Devil's Walk
Ten Early Poems (1809-1814)
Appendixes
Introduction
A. Latin School Exercises
B. Prose Treated as Poems
C. Lost Works
D. Dubia
E. Misattributions
Index of Titles
Index of First Lines