Page:Shelley, a poem, with other writings (Thomson, Debell).djvu/56

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NOTICE OF ROSSETTI'S EDITION OF SHELLEY'S POETICAL WORKS.[1]


The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. In three volumes. London: E. Moxon, Son, and Co., 1878.


ENGLAND is at length beginning to do something like justice to its supreme Poet of this century. Quite recently, besides the cheap popular Editions of the Poems, of which the best we have examined is by Mr. Rossetti, there have been issued the reprint of the original Editions of the complete Works (so far as obtainable) under the care of Mr. R. Herne Shepherd, and the library edition, in four vols., of the Poetical Works by Mr. H. Buxton Forman; and now Mr. Rossetti has been encouraged to issue, with improvements up to date, a second edition of that which appeared in 1870. Those who, like ourselves, have had occasion to examine minutely the 1870 edition, know in how many and what important cases it rectified and tended to rectify the very inaccurate text of Mrs. Shelley; and both in the Memoir and the text this second issue is a marked improvement on the first. In Mr. Rossetti's own words:

  1. This and the following article are reprinted by permission from Cope's Tobacco Plant.