Lanterna Rally

Author: William Michael Shelley

Publisher:

Published: 2015-07-11

Total Pages: 494

ISBN-13: 9781331182153

Excerpt from The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Vol. 1 of 3: The d104 Carefully Revised, With Notes and a Memoir The Preface which I wrote for my Edition of Shelley in 1870, two volumes, will in various respects answer for this Re-edition of 1878, three volumes: in some other respects it is necessarily modified. A few paragraphs will suffice; other details, relevant to Shelley's poems and to our republication of them, being supplied in the Memoir, and in the Notes at the close of the volumes. The fact that the old editions of Shelley were the reverse of scrupulously correct has frequently been remarked upon; as, for instance, thus by a poet who is also a keen critic, Mr. Allingham: - "Hardly any great poet, certainly no modern one, has been so inaccurately printed as Shelley. Helps to the very necessary revision are in existence, and ought quickly to be used." And thus by Mr. Swinburne, when our edition of 1870 was already in an advanced stage: - "It is seldom that the work of a scholiast is so soon wanted as in Shelley's case it has been. The first collected edition of his works had many gaps and errors patent and palpable to any serious reader. His text is already matter for debate and comment, as though he were a classic newly unearthed." If we enquire why Shelley has suffered so much in the printed form of his poems, we shall find that the responsibility rests upon three defendants - Shelley himself, Casualty, and Mrs. Shelley. Shelley was essentially unprecise as a writer. Spite of his classical education and tastes, and his cultivated perceptions of many kinds, he was at all times capable of committing, and incapable of avoiding, slips of grammar and syntax - slips which may indeed be called small, but which are not the less gross - and other oversights, such as rhymes left unsupplied, or nullified by writing the wrong word. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.