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London: Edward Moxon, 1839 Small 8vos., 4 vols; original publisher?s pebble-grained red cloth, ruled and embossed in blind with decorative borders; spines lettered and fully decorated in gilt; pale yellow endpapers; engraved frontispiece portrait of the poet behind mounted tissue guard to Vol I; pp. [vii]; viii-xvi, [v], 4-380, [ii]; [xi], 4-347, [ii], 2-4 [ads]; [v], vi-viii, [[[[i], 4-314, [ii]; [v], vi-viii, [iii], 4-361, [iii, ads]; some minor dirt marks to cloth; spines lightly and evenly sunned; some chipping to the cloth along the backstrips, showing through to the boards beneath (particularly affecting Vols I and II at head, with some nicking to the spine tips); prelims and frontis of Vol I a little spotted; a few spots throughout, else rather clean; a few corner creases; outer edges untrimmed; many pages entirely unopened; a very good set in the contemporary publisher?s cloth. The first complete edition of Shelley?s works, with introduction and notes written by Mary Shelley. All half titles and advertisements as called for. This collected edition was the one which propelled the poet to fame, partly due to the work and diligence of his wife Mary, who gathered together his best-known works in this four volume set. The poet was virtually unrecognised during his lifetime, and after perishing while sailing in a storm with Edward Williams in 1822, most of his poems were left unfinished or unpublished. The poet?s father Timothy initially objected to his son?s works being published, and prohibited Mary from doing so by threatening to withdraw the financial support he was providing for her and his grandson, Percy Florence Shelley. However, after a series of pirated editions appeared, the poet?s father Timothy was convinced that his son?s name no longer spelled scandal, and Mary was allowed to prepare the collection under the condition that only a minimal amount of bibliographical information was included. It is said that she also edited them significantly to highlight her late husband's lyrical gifts and downplay his radical ideas surrounding politics, atheism and free love. The resulting edition established him firmly as one of the greatest poets of the 19th century, and brought his name into mainstream national culture. The collection includes many of Shelley?s now famous poems, including Prometheus Unbound, Ozymandias and Ode to the West Wind. It also begins with the infamous Queen Mab, Shelley?s first major poem which he initially published personally in 1813 in a run of just 250 copies. The revolutionary tract was intended for private distribution among his friends and family, but a year before his death a shopkeeper discovered the remaining copies, had them bound, and distributed the resulting editions through the black market. They were subsequently discovered by the Society for the Prevention of Vice, and Shelley sought an injunction against the shopkeeper, but since the poem was considered illegal, he was not entitled to the copyright. The bookshop owner was subsequently imprisoned for 4 months for publishing and distributing the poem. When it was later edited and republished by Mary, she omitted several atheistic passages, but these were restored in a second edition less than a year later, and blasphemous libel charges were brought against Edward Moxon, the publisher. The trial resulted in a guilty verdict, but the prosecution chose not to pursue any punishment beyond a payment of costs, and "there were no further attempts to impede the circulation of Queen Mab." Rare indeed in the original cloth. . Seller Inventory # 003373
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