The Complete Poetical Works, vol 1

The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Complete Poetical Works of Percy
Bysshe Shelley Volume I, by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Title: The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I
Author: Percy Bysshe Shelley
Edited by Thomas Hutchinson, M. A.
Release Date: December, 2003 [Etext #4797]
[This file was last
updated on March 18, 2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII
0. START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG ETEXT THE
COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS ***
Produced by Sue Asscher >
THE COMPLETE
POETICAL WORKS
OF
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
VOLUME 1
OXFORD EDITION.
INCLUDING MATERIALS NEVER BEFORE
PRINTED IN
ANY EDITION OF THE POEMS.
EDITED WITH TEXTUAL NOTES
BY
THOMAS HUTCHINSON, M. A.
EDITOR OF THE OXFORD
WORDSWORTH.
1914.
PREFACE.
This edition of his "Poetical Works" contains all Shelley's ascertained
poems and fragments of verse that have hitherto appeared in print. In
preparing the volume I have worked as far as possible on the principle
of recognizing the editio princeps as the primary textual authority. I
have not been content to reprint Mrs. Shelley's recension of 1839, or
that of any subsequent editor of the "Poems". The present text is the
result of a fresh collation of the early editions; and in every material

instance of departure from the wording of those originals the rejected
reading has been subjoined in a footnote. Again, wherever--as in the
case of "Julian and
Maddalo"--there has appeared to be good reason
for superseding the authority of the editio princeps, the fact is
announced, and the substituted exemplar indicated, in the Prefatory
Note. in the case of a few pieces extant in two or more versions of
debatable authority the alternative text or texts will be found at the [end]
of the [relevant work]; but it may be said once for all that this does not
pretend to be a variorum edition, in the proper sense of the term--the
textual apparatus does not claim to be exhaustive. Thus I have not
thought it necessary to cumber the footnotes with every minute
grammatical correction introduced by Mrs. Shelley, apparently on her
own authority, into the texts of 1839; nor has it come within the scheme
of this edition to record every conjectural emendation adopted or
proposed by Rossetti and others in recent times. But it is hoped that, up
to and including the editions of 1839 at least, no important variation of
the text has been overlooked. Whenever a reading has been adopted on
manuscript authority, a reference to the particular source has been
added below.
I have been chary of gratuitous interference with the punctuation of the
manuscripts and early editions; in this direction, however, some
revision was indispensable. Even in his most carefully finished "fair
copy" Shelley under-punctuates (Thus in the exquisite autograph "Hunt
MS." of "Julian and Maddalo", Mr. Buxton Forman, the most
conservative of editors, finds it necessary to supplement Shelley's
punctuation in no fewer than ninety-four places.), and sometimes
punctuates capriciously. In the very act of transcribing his mind was apt
to stray from the work in hand to higher things; he would lose himself
in contemplating those airy abstractions and lofty visions of which
alone he greatly cared to sing, to the neglect and detriment of the
merely external and formal element of his song. Shelley recked little of
the jots and tittles of literary craftsmanship; he committed many a small
sin against the rules of grammar, and certainly paid but a halting
attention to the nice distinctions of punctuation. Thus in the early
editions a comma occasionally plays the part of a semicolon; colons
and semicolons seem to be employed interchangeably; a semicolon

almost invariably appears where nowadays we should employ the dash;
and, lastly, the dash itself becomes a point of all work, replacing
indifferently commas, colons, semicolons or periods. Inadequate and
sometimes haphazard as it is, however, Shelley's punctuation, so far as
it goes, is of great value as an index to his metrical, or