The Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley — Complete eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,285 pages of information about The Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley — Complete.

The Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley — Complete eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,285 pages of information about The Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley — Complete.

Here the misprint, clod, which in 1868 appeared in Moxon’s edition of the “Letters of Charles Lamb”, has through five successive editions and under many editors—­including Fitzgerald, Ainger, and Macdonald—­held its ground even to the present day; and this, notwithstanding the preservation of the true reading, clog, in the texts of Talfourd and Carew Hazlitt.  Here then is the case of a palpable misprint surviving, despite positive external evidence of its falsity, over a period of thirty-six years.

3.  And walked as free, etc. (Ded. 7 6).

Walked is one of Shelley’s occasional grammatical laxities.  Forman well observes that walkedst, the right word here, would naturally seem to Shelley more heinous than a breach of syntactic rule.  Rossetti and, after him, Dowden print walk.  Forman and Woodberry follow the early texts.

4. 1 9 1-7.  Here the text follows the punctuation of the editio princeps, 1818, with two exceptions:  a comma is inserted (1) after scale (line 201), on the authority of the Bodleian manuscript (Locock); and (2) after neck (line 205), to indicate the true construction.  Mrs. Shelley’s text, 1839, has a semicolon after plumes (line 203), which Rossetti adopts.  Forman (1892) departs from the pointing of Shelley’s edition here, placing a period at the close of line 199, and a dash after blended (line 200).

5.  What life, what power, was, etc. (1 11 1.) The editio princeps, 1818, wants the commas here.

6. ...and now We are embarked—­the mountains hang and frown Over the starry deep that gleams below, A vast and dim expanse, as o’er the waves we go. (1 23 6-9.) With Woodberry I substitute after embarked (7) a dash for the comma of the editio princeps; with Rossetti I restore to below (8) a comma which I believe to have been overlooked by the printer of that edition.  Shelley’s meaning I take to be that ’a vast and dim expanse of mountain hangs frowning over the starry deep that gleams below it as we pass over the waves.’

7.  As King, and Lord, and God, the conquering Fiend did own,—­(1 28 9.) So Forman (1892), Dowden; the editio princeps, has a full stop at the close of the line,—­where, according to Mr. Locock, no point appears in the Bodleian manuscript.

8.  Black-winged demon forms, etc. (1 30 7.) The Bodleian manuscript exhibits the requisite hyphen here, and in golden-pinioned (32 2).

9. 1 31 2, 6.  The ‘three-dots’ point, employed by Shelley to indicate a pause longer than that of a full stop, is introduced into these two lines on the authority of the Bodleian manuscript.  In both cases it replaces a dash in the editio princeps.  See list of punctual variations below.  Mr. Locock reports the presence in the manuscript of what he justly terms a ‘characteristic’ comma after Soon (31 2).

10. ...mine shook beneath the wide emotion. (1 38 9.) For emotion the Bodleian manuscript has commotion (Locock)—­perhaps the fitter word here.

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The Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley — Complete from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.