The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley

edited by Mrs. Shelley [Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley] 

First edition, four volumes.  London:  Edward Moxon, 1839  

Hardback set is overall in VERY GOOD condition.

• Polished calf covers with gilt ornament, labels and gilt text at spine. 
• Boards show some exposure, scuffing, edgewear.  Corners are scuffed, with exposed board.  See photos.
• Spine has raised bands, gilt decoration, morocco labels with gilt text, and is darkened with scuffing and chipping to labels and ends.  See photos.  
• Binding is secure.  
• Marble end papers/ pastedowns show shadows at edges from contact with the leather.  Free end papers have some moderate foxing.  See photos.  
• Frontispiece, a portrait of the poet, is present and has intact tissue guard.
• Interior is gently age-toned, exhibits scattered light foxing.  Inside pages are free of writing and intentional marks.
• Text block edges have gilt along head, fore and foot edges are untrimmed. 
• PS2026.0311

380 + 347 + 314 + 361 pages. 4 1/8 x 6 1/2 inches

[Fine Binding].  Complete in four volumes.  Full polished calf, oxblood morocco title lables, raised bands, gilt titles and all edges, gilt decorations to compartments and double ruling to boards and board edges, gilt inner dentelles.  First Collected Edition;  illustrated with tissue-protected engraved frontispiece portrait of Shelley by Finden.  The first complete edition of Percy Shelley's poetical works, complied and edited by his wife Mary Shelley.  Some scuffing to boards, spines show exposure, some chipping to labels and at spine ends.  Foxing to the free end papers and to the engraved frontispiece; the text block is largely unmarked.  Condition overall is Very Good.  Uncommon in commerce. 

The first complete edition of the poetical works by Percy Shelley (1792-1822), complied and edited by his wife Mary Shelley (1797-1851).  Previously, Shelley's poetry had largely been brought before the public in a multiplicity of private, small-run, and/or pirated editions.  Sir Timothy Shelley, the poet's father, had feared that a new collected edition would likely draw fresh attention to his son's radical writings.  Realizing that obscurity was unlikely in any case, he dropped his objections to Mary producing an official edition.  With this edition of 1839, Mary brought Percy's work into the mainstream, and her notes, which added significantly to the fuller comprehension of Percy's poetic writings, have become inseparable from the texts themselves.  

Fine binding by Charles E. Lauriat Co. Boston.

First Collected Edition.  Bradbury and Evans, Printer.  

Please see photos. More photos available upon request.

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