The Selected Poetry and Prose of Shelley

Shelley's short, prolific life produced some of the most memorable and well-known lyrics of the Romantic period. But he was also the most radical writer in the English literary tradition of his day, a fiery political visionary committed to social change and progress.

The generous selection in this volume represents the wide range of his writing, both poetry and prose. Arranged chronologically, the accompanying introductory essays set Shelley's works in their historical, social and political context.

They provide a vivid insight into the life and times of this volcanic spirit whose inspiring voice called on the people of England to:

"Rise like lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number;
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you.
We are many, they are few."
The Mask of Anarchy

Poems from 1812 - 1813

• Queen Mab
• Notes on Queen Mab
• Sonnet: To a Balloon laden with Knowledge
• Sonnet: On launching some Bottles filled with Knowledge into the Bristol Channel

Poems from 1814

• Stanzas - April 1814

Poems from 1815

• Alastor
• To Wordsworth
• To - 'O, there are spirits of the air'
• Mutability
• A Summer-Evening Churchyard
• Feelings of a Republican on the Fall of Bonaparte

Poems from 1816

• Mont Blanc
• Hymn to Intellectual Beauty

Poems from 1817

• Laon and Cythna (extracts)
• Ozymandias

Poems from 1818

• Lines written among the Euganean Hills
• Julian and Maddalo
• Stanzas written in Dejection, near Naples
• Sonnet: 'Lift not the painted veil'

Poems from 1819

• Prometheus Unbound
• The Cenci
• The Mask of Anarchy
• Ode to the West Wind
• Lines written during the Castlereagh Administration
• Song to the Men of England
• Similes for Two Political Characters of 1819
• England in 1819
• On the Medusa of Leonardo da Vinci in the Florentine Gallery
• Love's Philosophy
• Peter Bell the Third (extracts)
• The Indian Girl's Song
• Ode to Heaven

Poems from 1820

• The Sensitive Plant
• Letter to Maria Gisborne
• The Witch of Atlas
• Hymn of Apollo
• Hymn of Pan
• The Tower of Famine
• Song: 'Rarely, rarely, comest thou'
• To a Skylark
• Ode to Liberty
• To the Lord Chancellor
• The Cloud

Poems from 1821

• Epipsychidion
• Adonais
• Written on Hearing the News of the Death of Napoleon
• To Night
• To - 'One word is too often profaned'
• To - 'Music, when soft voices die'
• Political Greatness
• Evening: Ponte al Mare, Pisa

Poems from 1822

• Lines: "When the lamp is shattered'
• To Jane: The Invitation
• To Jane: The Recollection
• With a Guitar, to Jane
• To Jane
• Lines written in the Bay of Lerici
• The Triumph of Life

Prose

• A Declaration of Rights
• A Letter to Lord Ellenborough
• A Vindication of Natural Diet
• An Address to the People on the Death of the Princess Charlotte
• A Philosophical View of Reform
• A Defence of Poetry

Notes
Index of First Lines of the Poems
Index of Titles of the Poems and Prose