Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Price: US$192.30 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: 4 volume set of the collected works of Shelley and with editorial notes on the poems by his wife Mary. The notes explain the meanings behind the creativity, the places they were written, etc. This set is dis-bound but with all original calf boards included, but spines lost. Contents clean, collated as all four complete with a steel engraved frontis by F. Findon. AEG (all edges gilt), would rebind well Sold as a set complete but NEEDS repair to the covers and spines. Small octavo. Owner name on one loose endpaper "W. J Carver. Trin Coll 1845 (Trinity College). 1st edition 1839. Poems include: Queen Mab, The Revolt of Islam, Prometheus Unbound, The Cenci, etc, & Early Poems & Poems written between 1820-24. The Mary Shelley contributions are extensive and insightful. Scarce. (4) Subsidised postage included in price.
Seller: Colophon Books (UK), Leek, United Kingdom
Price: US$400.00 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: 4-volume set, complete. Uniformly bound in blue half-leather with marbled boards, rasied bands and gilt decoration, covers show minor wear, rubbing, and bumped corners. Top edges gilt, marbled endpapers. Pages are tanned with a few minor tidemarks.
Seller: Books From California, Simi Valley, CA, U.S.A.
SHELLEY Percy Bysshe.. The Poetical Works, edited by Mrs. Shelley.. Londres, Edward Moxon, 1839.
Price: US$1094.38 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: Londres, Edward Moxon, 1839. Quatre volumes in-8, pleine percaline brune romantique, double filet estampé encadrant les plats, médaillon central estampé, auteur, titre et tomaison dorés, XVI-[2]-380-[2], 347-[1]-4, VIII-314-[2] et VIII-361-[3] pages. Première édition collective, en partie originale, établie par la veuve du poète et dédiée à leur fils, Percy Florence. En 1824, le père du poète avait interdit toute publication des oeuvres pour une période de 15 ans ; à l'issue de celle-ci, Mary Shelley entreprit donc l'édition collective des poésies, enrichie d'un grand nombre d'inédits dont elle conservait les manuscrits. Portrait-frontispice gravé par William Finden, d après un tableau conservé par Mary Shelley. Coiffes un peu enfoncées, un petit accroc restauré mais bon exemplaire, exempt de rousseurs, de cette première édition des oeuvres de Shelley établie par l'auteur de Frankenstein.
Seller: Librairie Jean-Yves Lacroix, Gouloux, France
Price: US$1281.99 + shipping
Description: First collected edition. Frontispiece. Four volumes. 8vo. xvi, [2], 380; [4], 347, [1]; viii, 314, [2]; viii, 361, [1] pp. Contemporary half calf with green pebbled cloth covered boards, spines with five raised bands outlined in black, lettered in gilt to black morocco label, all edges marbled. London, Moxon. After Percy Shelley died, Mary Shelley was keen to disseminate his works and bring him the recognition that he didn?t receive in his lifetime. Percy Shelley?s father Sir Timothy Shelley objected to his son?s works being published and prohibited Mary Shelley from doing so by threatening to withdraw the financial support he was providing for his grandson (her and Percy Shelley?s son), Percy Florence Shelley. However, in the summer of 1838 Edward Moxon ?offered her £500 to edit a four-volume set of Shelly?s collected works. He also wanted her to provide biographical material for those readers who had already encountered Shelley?s poems and were eager to know more about him.? (Gordon). Fortunately for Mary Shelley, Sir Thomas Shelley?s legal representation had changed and his new lawyer was more sympathetic to Mary Shelley. He persuaded her father-in-law to allow Mary Shelley ?to publish Shelley?s work by telling him he should be proud of is son?s poetry and reminding him that the Shelley name no longer spelled scandal.? (Gordon). He would not, however, allow her to publish a biography, and so she wrote extensive notes on each poem, putting them into context as editor, rather than biographer. She did censor the work somewhat, to make it more palatable to the conservative readers, so that ?New readers, unaware of Shelley?s radical ideas and the scandals attached to his name, bowed to Shelley?s genius and ushered him into the halls of the great English poets.? (Gordon). She ?presented Queen Mab in this volume with so many excisions as to make it both harmless and meaningless [?] later in the year a one-volume edition of the poems appeared in which Queen Mab was printed entire, with Shelley?s notes. It was for publishing this volume that Edward Moxon was tried on June 23, 1841, for blasphemous libel?, the last case of its kind in England (White). A very good set, joints, and corners rubbed. Two bookplates to front pastedowns. Newman I. White, ?Literature and the Law of Libel: Shelley and the Radicals of 1840-1842?, in Studies in Philology.
Seller: Maggs Bros. Ltd ABA, ILAB, PBFA, BA, London, United Kingdom
Price: US$1602.48 + shipping
Description: First collected edition, attractively bound by Tout. Mary Shelley's collected edition of her husband's poetical works established him finally and irreversibly amongst the great poets of the English language. Pirate editions of Shelley's works had persuaded his father, Sir Timothy, that all hope of obscurity had passed, and Mary was allowed to prepare a proper edition provided she included only a minimal amount of biographical information. "Mary Shelley brought Shelley into the mainstream of the national culture. He was no longer the author of a notorious banned poem [Queen Mab] only obtainable from shops specializing in blasphemy, sedition and advice on birth control. He was the prophet of Prometheus Unbound, one of the most ambitious attempts ever made to uplift life by literature, and of other works such as the "Ode to the West Wind". The notes that Mary added are masterpieces of editing, adding so immeasurably to the reader's understanding that nobody would now consider printing Shelley's poems without them" (St Clair, p. 492). From 1868 through 1879, bookbinder Samuel Tout (1841-1902) operated in Nassau Street in Soho, London. He then worked in a bindery in Whitechapel with William Coward, continuing on his own after 1880. Tout was also a member of the early staff of Karslake's Hampstead Bindery, which opened in Charing Cross in 1898. Dunbar, Shelley Studies 345; Granniss 88; Wise, p. 87. St Clair, The Godwins and the Shelleys: The Biography of a Family, 1989. 4 volumes, octavo (165 x 107 mm). Late 19th-century pebble-grain blue half morocco by Tout for the Boston booksellers Estes and Lauriat, spines with gilt-ruled raised bands, lettering and decoration in gilt on compartments, marbled sides ruled in gilt, marbled endpapers, top edges gilt. Engraved portrait frontispiece in vol. I. All volumes bound without half-titles, vol. I without final leaf with publisher's imprint, vols II and IV without advertisements. Spines slightly toned, a touch of wear to lower corners, lower outer corner of one leaf sometime neatly repaired, a few spots of foxing to endpapers in each volume, extending to a couple of initial leaves in vol. I, contents otherwise clean. A very good set.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom
Price: US$1602.48 + shipping
Description: First collected edition of Shelley's complete poems, compiled by his wife Mary. This set has an attractive provenance, from the libraries of two of William Wordsworth's nephews: first John Wordsworth (1805-1839), with his ownership inscription and ex-libris stamp on the front free endpaper of each volume, and then Charles Wordsworth (1806-1892), with his posthumous presentation bookplate on the front pastedowns. John and Charles were the sons of Christopher Wordsworth (1774-1846), the younger brother of the poet and the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, from 1820 to 1841. John, the elder brother, won a scholarship to his father's college in 1824, was elected to a fellowship there in 1830, and was ordained deacon and priest by the Bishop of Ely in 1837. While preparing a new edition of his poems in 1838, William Wordsworth praised John as "the most accurate man I know", writing to his publisher Edward Moxon that he was "in hopes that my nephew, Mr. John Wordsworth, of Cambridge, will correct the proofs. if a revise of each sheet could be sent to him, the edition would be immaculate" (Grosart, vol. III, p. 358). Around this time, however, John's health began to fail, and he died in Cambridge on 31 December 1839. Following his death, his uncle paid tribute to him as "a most amiable man, and I have reason to believe one of the best scholars in Europe. We were all strongly attached to him" (ibid.). The present set then passed into the library of John's younger brother Charles. While a student at Christ Church, Charles founded the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race, captaining the winning Oxford team during the first race in 1829. Following a long career as a tutor - his students included future prime minister William Gladstone - he was elected Bishop of St Andrews, Dunkeld, and Dunblane in 1852. This set was then given to St Ninian's Cathedral, Perth, where Charles's episcopal see was located; his bookplate, with his coat of arms, notes that the books were "Presented by Bishop Wordsworth's family" to St Ninian's, likely after his death in 1892. Mary Shelley's edition of her husband's poetical works established him finally and irreversibly amongst the great poets of the English language. Shelley's sonnet "To Wordsworth", in which he praises his Romantic forebear as "a lone star, whose light did shine / On some frail bark in winter's midnight roar", is included in vol. III, p. 13. Dunbar, Shelley Studies 345; Granniss 88; Wise, p. 87. Alexander B. Grosart, The Prose Works of William Wordsworth, 3 vols, 1876. 4 volumes, octavo. Original brown cloth, spines lettered in gilt, covers panelled with arabesque decorations in blind, top and fore edges uncut, bottom edges trimmed, yellow coated endpapers. Engraved portrait frontispiece, with tissue-guard. Spines lightly chipped at head, front joint of vol. IV discreetly repaired. A very good set, largely unopened.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom
Price: US$1695.00 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: [Fine Binding]. Complete in four volumes. Full red calf, black 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, (6.5 x 4.5 inches). First Collected Edition. 380, 347, 314, 361 pages; illustrated with tissue-protected engraved frontispiece portrait of Shelley by Finden. Bradbury and Evans, Printer. The first complete edition of Percy Shelley's poetical works, complied and edited by his wife Mary Shelley. Bookplates of Charles Clifford Dibble, an exceptionally clean, tight set in a fine binding with strong shelf presence. Size: 12mo
Seller: Books & Bidders Antiquarian Booksellers, Cleveland, OH, U.S.A.
Price: US$3845.96 + shipping
Description: First collected edition, a very attractive set in the deluxe red cloth, rare in such bright and fresh condition. Mary Shelley's collected edition of her husband's poetical works established him finally and irreversibly amongst the great poets of the English language. Pirate editions of Shelley's works had persuaded his father, Sir Timothy, that all hope of obscurity had passed, and Mary was allowed to prepare a proper edition provided there was only a minimum of biographical information. "Mary Shelley brought Shelley into the mainstream of the national culture. He was no longer the author of a notorious banned poem [Queen Mab] only obtainable from shops specializing in blasphemy, sedition and advice on birth control. He was the prophet of Prometheus Unbound, one of the most ambitious attempts ever made to uplift life by literature, and of other works such as the "Ode to the West Wind". The notes that Mary added are masterpieces of editing, adding so immeasurably to the reader's understanding that nobody would now consider printing Shelley's poems without them" (St Clair, p. 492). Dunbar, Shelley Studies 345; Granniss 88; Wise, p. 87. St Clair, The Godwins and the Shelleys: The Biography of a Family, 1989. 4 volumes, octavo. Original red pebble-grained cloth, spines lettered and decorated in gilt, covers panelled with arabesque decorations in blind, yellow coated endpapers. Engraved portrait frontispiece. Cloth a little rubbed, extremities bumped and lightly worn with some minor loss to front joint of vol. 4; faint foxing to first few leaves of vol. 1, front inner hinges of vols 3 and 4 partly cracked but firm, contents otherwise clean and crisp. A very good set.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom