Shelley and His Circle, 1773-1822, Volumes 7 and 8

Volumes VII and VIII not only carry the chronological catalogue of relevant manuscripts into July 1820, but they also contain an important retrospective of recently acquired Shelley and Byron letters and literary manuscripts from their summer together in Switzerland in 1816 through the end of 1819. (Some eighty-five percent of the manuscripts appearing in these volumes were not known to exist when Volumes VVI of Shelley and His Circle went to press.) Among these are Shelleys long letter to Peacock describing his first acquaintance with Byron and their trip together around Lake Geneva (hitherto published as two separate letters); the press-copy manuscripts of Byrons Beppo and Shelleys Athanase: A Fragment; letters of Henry Brougham and Madame de Stael that comment on Byron in Switzerland; numerous letters by Byrons Venetian mistresses; and letters charting the growth of Byrons attachment to Teresa Guiccioli. In volume VIII, the materials of 1820 include E. J. Trelawnys account and commonplace book of 18201822; letters by Keats and others mentioning him; hitherto established letters from Peacock and others relevant to Shelleys debt to a Bath upholstery firm; Shelleys annotations in copies of Godwins Political Justice and Spinozas Traclatus Theologico-Politicus; three newly discovered letters of Shelley to his Florentine banker, as well as other important letters by Shelley, Godwin, and Leigh Hunt; and a web of correspondence between Teresa Guiccioli and Byron while they carried on their affair from different apartments in the Palazzo Guiccioli. These primary materials, all meticulously transcribed (those in Italian and Latin also accompanied by full translations) are complemented by detailed commentaries on events, people, ideas, and problems reused by the manuscripts, as well as by the following major essays: Shelley as Athanase by Donald H. Reiman; Countesses and Cobblers Wives: Byrons Venetian Mistresses by Doucet Devin Fischer; Mixed Company: Byrons Beppo and the Italian Medley by Jerome J. McGann; Countess Guicciolis Byron by Doucet Devin Fischer; Trelawnys Lost Years by William St. Clair; and Shelley and the Upholsterers of Bath by Donald H. Reiman.