Prose Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley: Volume I

Volume I of this major 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 lastmonths in Oxford in 1811 and his departure for Italy in 1818: they preserve his original punctuation and spelling, and textual notes give copy-text variants, revisions, and deletions.In addition, the Introduction supplies a full account of previous editions, and places the prose pieces in their political context; and the commentary pays particular attention to the problems of dating the manuscripts. The commentary also 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.

`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., 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.