THE POETICAL WORKS OF PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

First collected edition. Four volumes. Publisher's original red cloth decorated in blind to the boards and with titles and decoration in gilt to the spines. Page edges untrimmed. Engraved portrait frontispiece to volume one. A very good set, the bindings square and firm with some rubbing and fraying at the spine tips and edges, volume one with the loss of a small piece of cloth to the upper right side of the spine. The cloth, ever so lightly and uniformly faded to the spines, is otherwise clean and bright. The hinges are sound. The contents with foxing to the engraved frontispiece are otherwise in excellent order and wonderfully clean throughout, remaining free from any previous owner's inscriptions or stamps. A splendid set, particularly scarce in the publisher's original cloth.

The first complete edition of Percy Shelley's poetical works, complied and edited by his wife Mary Shelley. Previously, Shelley's poetry had largely been brought before the public in a multiplicity of either private and small-run editions (many of which had become increasingly scarce) or pirated editions. Percy's father, Sir Timothy Shelley, feared that a new collected edition would be likely to draw fresh attention to the radical writings of his son. Recognising, however, that obscurity was unlikely in any case, he relented and dropped his objections to Mary producing an official edition. After having attempted to do so since her husband's death in 1822, Mary thus brought Percy's work into the mainstream. Her notes, which added significantly to the fuller comprehension of Percy's poetic writings, have since become inseparable from the texts themselves and her endeavours ultimately served to secure his position as one of the foremost poets of the English language.