GEORGE BELL & SONS, LONDON: YORK ST., COVENT GARDEN NEW YORK: 66, FIFTH AVENUE, AND BOMBAY: 53, ESPLANADE ROAD CAMBRIDGE: DEIGHTON, BELL & Co. THE POETICAL WORKS OF PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY EDITED WITH A MEMOIR BY H. BUXTON FORMAN IN FIVE VOLUMES VOL. III LONDON GEORGE BELL AND SONS 1900 0970 PREFACE. THE substance of the present volume formed four of Shelley's separate issues. Of The Cenci there was a second edition printed in his lifetime, in 1821; but his own Livorno print, with the extant list of errata written out for him by Mrs. Shelley and sent by him to his publisher, must be regarded as the proper basis of the text. For Prometheus Unbound and the poems published with it, there was what Shelley described as a formidable list" of errata. The fact that Mrs. Shelley had this list lends special weight to her collected editions of 1839 as regards the text of Prometheus and the lyric poems standing between it and Edipus Tyrannus in the present volume. Of Edipus and of Epipsychidion, Shelley's own editions are the proper textual basis, with a very sparing use of emendation on account of blunders made by transcribers or printers. The "Relation of the Death of the Family of the Cenci" follows the Tragedy in accordance with the poet's intention. Of its historical value nothing need be said: the real Count may have been less monstrous, the real Beatrice less wronged and less tragic, and the real Giacomo less feeble, than the word-portraits of this record indicate; but whatever may have been discovered concerning the actualities of III. α 2 THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES OF GEORGIA |