THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. A Poem. Now First Published, with a Preface by Leigh Hunt.

SHELLEY, Percy Bysshe:

Published by London: Edward Moxon., 1832

About this Item

First edition. Small octavo. Publisher's original drab paper-covered boards. Page edges untrimmed. Complete with the half-title page and publisher's advertisement leaf at the rear. pp. [i-v] xxx, 47, [3]. Near-contemporary gift inscription in ink to the front free endpaper, "Henry Wright / 1839 / From J. Ellis". A very good copy, the binding firm with (essentially cosmetic) cracking to the joints, loss to the paper covering the spine, marking to the boards, and a little wear to the corners. The contents with light scattered foxing to the endpapers are otherwise wonderfully clean and crisp throughout. An appealing unsophisticated copy. The first edition of one of the greatest poems of political protest in the English language, often regarded as the first modern statement of the principle of non-violent resistance. Written in response to the Peterloo Massacre in 1819, Shelley had first sent the manuscript for publication in the radical journal, The Examiner. Its editor, Leigh Hunt, however, withheld it from publication as he "thought that the public at large had not become sufficiently discerning to do justice to the sincerity and kind-heartedness of the spirit that walked in this flaming robe of verse", with the work ultimately not published until ten years after Shelley's untimely death. A powerful condemnation of tyranny, the poem serves as an exhortation for the people to throw off the yoke of their oppressors through peaceful collective action: "Let a great assembly be / Of the fearless, of the free". A work which has been read aloud to assembled crowds during many of the great struggles for political freedom and social change around the world from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century, the oft-quoted final verse has remained the most stirring: "Rise like lions after slumber / In unvanquishable NUMBER! / Shake your chains to earth, like dew / Which in sleep had fall'n on you: / YE ARE MANY - THEY ARE FEW.".

Seller Inventory # 1751

Bibliographic Details

• Title: THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. A Poem. Now First Published, with a Preface by Leigh Hunt.
• Publisher: London: Edward Moxon.
• Publication Date: 1832
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: 1st Edition