The precursor to the, in comparision, pithy 'Lost in the Cosmos,' Message in a Bottle is less accessible than his later, more famous, book. However, Message... provides all of the necessary academic rigor that 'Lost in the Cosmos' lacks (not that LC is not a great book, it is).

Percy claims that he is, in fact, not philosopher or scientist. Rather, he wishes to be thought of as mere novelist writing as he perceives scientists and philosophers. In fact, this is a sort of claim of superiority in the sense that Percy thinks he knows more about philosophers and scientists than they know about themselves (which may be true). Even so, Percy's methods are quite scientific and philosophic. Message in a Bottle deals with the most important question of all: What is Man? Percy contends, as any good Heideggerian would, that we are essentially castaways on an island. We aren't quite sure how we got here and we don't quite know what we're supposed to do now that we are here. But Percy is a Thomist, not an existentialist (although the two are connected). While Percy finds the greatest evidence for our essential 'lostness' in the altogether baffling phenomenon of language, Percy is nevertheless concerned with what we are to do about out anxiety about existence. Percy is interested in pursuing the Thomistic project; 'completing' reason with revelation.

A few of the essays in this collection make for somewhat dry reading (Percy even says so himself), but if wonder and enlightenment are your goals, then this is an extremely rewarding book. His insights on symbolic reasoning, the origins of mankind, Hellen Keller, Semioticism, and the incredible Delta Factor are invariably fresh and thought-provoking. Percy is really onto something here; he may have only scratched the surface, but what he has revealed has powerful implications for all of us.

This dense, well-written and extraordinary book is an excellent introduction to the works of a great 20th century thinker. In this collection of essays, Percy manages to confront some difficult philosophical questions in an exciting and readable context. Percy was first a novelist, and his writing is seldom inaccesible. He deals in everything from religion to science, from literary theory to travel. His best writing relates to theories of language and the human being. Yet like some of the greatest X-Files episodes, Percy leaves many things unresolved, liminal, only suggested. Message in a Bottle is designed to stimulate the reader rather than fill them with useless information. I finished reading this book with the desire to read it again, and whenever I see it on the bookshelf I am comforted by the thought that there are people in the world who think for themselves, and who have the courage to print what they think.

A little on the slow and dry side. A short novel that doesn't really allow one to get to know or like any of the characters. In short a rather unremarkable book.

Having really knocked Dudley Pope's "The Black Ship" I feel compelled to review another book that shows how it is possible to make history thrilling without seriously departing from historical fact. Edith Pargetter wrote the "Brother Cadfael" series of medieval whodunnits under the pseudonym "Ellis Peters," and in "A Bloody Field by Shrewsbury" turned her talent to the story of Harry Hotspur's unsuccessful rebellion against Henry IV "Bolingbroke." Instead of trying to play psycologist (as Pope did in Pigot's case), Pargetter beautifully lays out the characters of Henry IV, Henry V and Hotspur by their interactions. Prince Henry had been a hostage of Richard II, but their relationship was such that Richard was more a father to the prince than was Bolingbroke (contrast how Pargetter carries this off with Pope's stolid comparison of Pigot's father and uncle). When the prince is called home from Ireland by Richard's impending ouster (and probable murder), Hal is very ambivalent towards his father, and needs reassurance (from Hotspur) that Bolingbroke's claim that Richard suicided is credible. He is placed under the guardianship of Hotspur, who becomes another father figure to him, and when, in the end, knowing that his father did starve his beloved Richard to death, but also knowing that his father's survival on the throne meant he would one day be king, and having to choose between Bolingbroke and Hotspur,
he chooses to be king. The psychology Pargetter develops through the relationships in her "fiction" is far more valid than was Pope's stumbling attempt at explicit analysis. This bit of English history was high drama in and of itself, and Pargetter gives it the dramatic tensions its narration deserves. Pigot's mutiny was also high drama, which Pope utterly failed to bring to life. This is not Pargetter's only serious historical fiction, and I'm eager to get more of it. Oh by the way, for the historically uneducated: Richard II was a "bad" king -- might have been manic-depressive -- and there was a wide concensus that he had to be go rid of. Hotspur's father and uncle, Warwick and Northumberland, led the junta that brought Bolingbroke in to take over. Bolingbroke himself got "out of control" once he got to the throne, probably really did do Richard in, and, from the northern and marcher barons' point of view, had to be replaced in his turn. Hotspur (Sir Henry Percy) was married to a sister of Edmund de Mortimer whose claim to the throne, based on the strictest application of the rules of primogeniture, was a better claim to suceed Richard II than Bolingbroke's. It was the competing claims of the Lancastrian and Yorkist houses that fuelled the "Wars of the Roses" beginning, arguably, with Hotspur's rebellion.

I'll start with this disclaimer: I am a loyal fan of the Brother Cadfael novels, written by the author under the pen name Ellis Peters. This novel explores the complex relationship among 3 men (all named Henry, interestingly enough): Henry IV, his son Henry the Prince of Wales, and Henry Percy, known as "hotspur," against the background of the deposing of King Richard II. Readers expecting lots of medieval carnage, promised by the picture on the cover, may be disappointed. Rather, the novel examines the character and psychology of the subjects, and how their relationships lead to the events that culminate in the "bloody field" of the title. I found it to be fascinating and thoroughly engrossing. As in the Cadfael series, Pargeter brings another age to life for the reader. You may even learn a little bit of history along the way.

edville, Louisiana s going through some major changes, changes that will effect their lives. Bob Comeaux, Van Dorn, and Max Gottlieb are heading up a top-secret operation, in the hope of bettering the community. Walker Percy writes The Thanatos Syndrome with the intentions of having the reader contemplate the little contamination of every day life. The aforementioned men head a study that puts heavy doses of sodium in the town's water supply. This causes the drinkers of the water to be set back to a nearly primal stage, but that's not the case. Dr. Tom Moore notices bizarre behavior patterns in his patients, friends, and even his wife. Moore had been is prison for selling drugs to truck drivers to help them stay awake, and had not witnessed the change in people. He finds out that someone has been contaminating the citizens of Fedville with extraordinary amounts of sodium. Moore finds himself in a whir pool of problems, from the strange activity in the town, to a strange ring of child-molesters in the school that his children attend. In the end the Thanatos Syndrome, probes every thing from Euthanasia, to improving society. Ultimately, this book asks, "Can you improve a society from the outside?" Walker Percy's book is witty and insightful, yet slow in some places, the reader should also be aware that it is very graphic. The book probes American culture very well and confronts the reader with the controversial topic, death towards the betterment of society.

The novel The Thanatos Syndrome by Walker Percy is a captivating story about the incredible powers of the human mind, and the destruction that is possible when one manipulates this precious system. Dr. More, fresh from incarceration for illegal drug distribution, challenges a group of his medical collegues who have created a project to alter the mental capabilities of the citizens of the town of Feliciana by adding sodium to the town's drinking water supply. This altering of the mind creates a deep moral conflict. The citizens are unaware of the experiment being perfomed on them, and therefore their rights are being violated. The sodium also causes both positive and negative effects in society, so the ethical benefits must be weighed agains the negative side effects. The twisted finale to the book leaves the reader questioning his or her own beliefs and moral views.

Walker Percy, M.D. struck his final blow at utopian social engineers with "The Thanatos Syndrome". He skillfully draws the connection between the population control groups of today and the cultured Germans of the Weimar Republic and their joint enthusiasm for eugenics and abortion solutions. With that theme playing itself out in the background, he pursues the exciting plot that asks the question: If you could put something in the water that would destroy freewill, but provide perfect order to society, should you? Launch yourself into this rare combination of thriller and deep cultural examination for a great read!

This is one of those books that is almost impossible to objectively review. The writing is elegant and evocative of an era in the South that died almost in tandem with Mr. Percy and yet I find some parts of it so arrogant and condescending that I feel myself grinding my teeth. You see, I am descended from those Mississippi hill people Percy so despised and, even after all this time, I can almost see the languid gaze and soft, drawling voice. My people came to the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta after the Flood of '27 and we build and earned what we got without the benefit of the massive slave labor that built Mr. Percy's fortune.

But this is a book review and I'll put aside old feelings to say that this is a literary gem that brings to life a way of life on which so many stereotypes of the South are built. And Will Percy is amazingly honest in his descriptions of his society. However, a society this simple and yet this complex takes more than just one book to grasp.

Thus, I also recommend "Rising Tide" by John Barry and "The Most Southern Place on Earth: The Mississippi Delta and the Roots of Regional Identity" by James Cobb to balance your view of this time and place in history.

Bottom line: This is a wonderful, beautifully written story that is refreshingly candid with none of the defensiveness and politically correct breast beating of many of the works of southern writers of recent years.

Percy's autobiogrpahy offers excellent insights into the heart and mind of those of his class (as close to an agricultural elite as this country has ever produced. But the best of this book is offered unconsciously, by accident or indirection.
If you're only going to read one book about the South, or about this elite, read John Barry's Rising Tide, a truly brilliant and magnificently-- almost breathtakingly-- written book. There you gte all of Percy's story plus more perspective and deeper understanding-- indeed, RT may even give you a deeper understanding of Percy than his autobuiography does.
If you're going to read 2 books on the South, then read RT and Mind of the South by Cash. Cash focuses more on the mindset of the rednecks, while Percy is very much an aristocrat. To a certain extent the Percy and Cash books complement each other. In fact, to Percy the word "anglo-saxon" was an insult. He considered himself descended from the Norman conquerors of the Anglo-saxons, and saw them as serfs. That little insight comes from Rising Tide.

Noble, refined, and distinctly tragic in sentiment, this book captures the proud soul of William Percy in eloquent prose. A man, in love with a vision of what is best in the world, in love with what is best in his fellow men, in love with what is best in his home emerges from these pages. He stands defiant in defense of the vision, despite all its imperfections, confident that its beauty outshines its faults. The book stands not only as a proud memorial to a noble vision that has passed into history, but a testimony to the beauty of the human spirit that continues to animate men to strive for nobility of life and the security virtues.

Shortly after the original edition of this book came out a bunch of US Navy admirals sued Howling Mad for libel, won, and got a court order to have the remaining copies destroyed and all Howling Mad's royalities turned over to them. For the "good" of Navy/Marines/Army relations the court case was kept rather quiet. Guess this makes this book one of those "banned" books of high collectability. Anyone who reads this book must read Edmund Love's "The 27th Infantry Division in WWII" for balance.

Penned by Smith with the help of Percy Finch in 1948, Coral and Brass is the autobiography of one of the most colorful and controversial commanders of WW II. Prior to the Japanese in the Pacific, Marine "Howlin' Mad" Smith waged war with the Navy and the Army. Never one to back down from a fight, he often railed against real and imagined slights. His resentment against the Navy seemed to stem from the horrible treatment he and his men received aboard ship in 1909. Headed to Nicaragua, the Marines were denied access to the canteen and were forced to pay 10 to 20 times the going rate for cigarettes and candy. At the Naval War College in 1920 he again ran headlong into the Navy's mindset that Marines "...were the lowest form of naval life" and "Marine officers are not qualified...to command large forces in war." It was largely through his efforts and others that the Marines were finally placed on equal footing with the other branches of the service.

In 1933, the Fleet Marine Force (FMF) was created and a permanent organization for the study and practice of amphibious warfare was brought into existence. The following year they produced a new doctrine of landing operations - the "Tentative Landing Operations Manual", which was subsequently adopted by the Navy in 1938 and by the Army in 1941. In 1937, then Col. Smith was made Director of Operations and Training and began building a modern amphibious force along the lines of the new doctrine. He later became Commander, V Amphibious Corps and then Commanding General, Fleet Marine Force.

Smith and several other men of vision understood the nature of the coming war in the Pacific and set out to train and supply the Corps properly. It was these men who fought so hard for the production of the Higgins boat, Roebling's "Alligator", the LVT and other amphibious craft. In this regard and in tactics, Smith was a foresighted genius. For better or worse, he also saw himself as a combat commander. Surrounded by controversy for most of his career, this book was written largely to justify his dismissal of Army Maj. Gen. Ralph Smith at Saipan. He tells us in the introduction that he does so relying "largely" on his memory. Perhaps that explains why many of his recollections are at odds with other written materials and testimony of the day.

Smith is one of those men who became larger, much larger than life. The media of the day sided with H.M. Smith and the history of the event is largely taken from a magazine article written by Robert Sherrod and subsequent newspaper articles. Questions, nevertheless, persist as to his fitness to command. (See, "Howlin' Mad" vs The Army by Harry Gailey) This is unfortunate for, in his proper element, the man was, without doubt, deserving of the praise heaped upon him. His co-author should have told him that making "I" his favorite word would not serve him well.

Covers the development of the fledgling Fleet Marine Force, a new concept in Amphibious Warfare. Deals in some detail the extremely important aspect of how landing craft were devised for this mission. Anyone who knows anything about the pre war Marine Corps or Navy will find the men and ships of that time on parade in this book. "Howlin' Mad" didn't get his nickname as a mistake. The only question is was he more angry with the Japanese, or the brass of the Navy or the Army. Describes his long and usually unsuccessful fights with the Navy as to who would control the landing force. Readers must recall that WW II began with the Marine Corps headed by a Major General, and the Marines themselves considered as what Harry Truman later called them in 1950, "The Police Force of the Navy." It would be the Fleet Marine Force and its success, formed by the brains and experience of a handful of officers, and the blood of all hands when it came to that, that would break this mold. Forever? There isn't any such thing. Each new generation of Marines must refight the fight to retain the right to fight. Jimmy Forrestal, looking at the U. S. colors being raised over Iwo asked Holland Smith if he knew what that event signified. Forrestal then told him that it meant a Marine Corps for the next 500 years. Two years later we were fighting in the halls of Congress to continue our right to exist. And by 1950, there were only some 23,952 serving officers and men in the Fleet Marine Force. A year later there were over 30,000 Marines serving in the Korean War. So, you Modern Day Marine Warriors, this is your charge. It's your turn. You've got some pretty good shoulders to stand on, but the battle is yours.

Suppose someone published a Shakespeare selection, that included pretty set pieces from the plays ("Queen Mab! What's she?" from _Romeo and Juliet_, "I know a bank whereon the wild thyme grows" from _Midsummer Night's Dream_), bits of _The Rape of Lucrece_ and _Venus and Adonis_, every last one of the "Sonnetf to Sundrie Notef of Mufic_, and a few songs: "It was a lover and his lass," and the like. But anything that hinted at a darker worldview or Shakespeare's wider range was ruthlessly excluded.

And suppose further that this anthology claimed that it represented Shakespeare's best work, showing his range and the things that make that writer great. So that anyone who knew Shakespeare through that anthology would think that he was good for the odd flower poem and a bit of "Hey nonny nonny" but not much else besides.

Isobel Quigly's _Shelley: A Selection_ is the Shelleyan equivalent of that Shakespeare anthology. Thus, Shelley's epic philosophical drama _Prometheus Unbound_, both a meditation about the relationship between thought and language and a metaphor for political renewal based on moral growth (among other things), is represented by a couple of incidental lyrics; all complexity and depth are left on Quigly's cutting room floor. _Julian and Maddalo_, with its urbanity, its bitter wit, crisp dialogue and vivid characterisation, is represented by one short purple passage (admittedly a splendid one) describing sunset over the Euganean hills.

The satirical Shelley is not represented at all: the contemptuous handling of contemporary political figures in the energetically grotesque _Oedipus Tyrannus_ is missing in action, as is the more nuanced satire of _Peter Bell the Third_. Oh, and the real Shelley may have been passionately engaged in the real world, protesting poverty, war and oppression in general and by specifics, in hard detail and in words of fire: but you won't find a hint of that in Quigly's selection. Many of Shelley's finest poems are simply omitted. _The Mask of Anarchy_ , _Song to the Men of England_, _Similes for Two Political Characters_, _Feelings of a Republican on Hearing the Death of Napoleon_, for example, and much else besides: Quigly won't trouble you with a word of it.

What she gives instead is every "pretty" poem Shelley ever wrote. That includes great lyrics like the _Ode to the West Wind_ and _To a Skylark_ and others, but also all the poems Shelley dashed off as gifts to women friends, often for them to use as song lyrics, and often written to fit existing tunes. These became enormously popular anthology pieces in the Victorian period, though Shelley himself showed little interest in them and never bothered to publish them.

It's not that these are bad poems. All are good of their kind, and many conceal a hard metaphysical kernel under a candied surface: _When the lamp is shattered_, and _Music when soft voices die_, for example. Shelley was in a sense more of a metaphysical than a romantic poet, and in another sense more of a metaphysical poet than the metaphysicals themselves, since he was often concerned with genuine metaphysical questions in his poetry: thought and language, epistemology, and so on.

But [...] Shelley is a minor and one-dimensional poet on the basis of this selection. But it's the selection at fault, not the poet.

Quigly also, irritatingly, strips poems of their contexts. She gives _Alastor_ and (surprisingly in view of its Dantean difficulties) _Epipsychidion_ complete, but rips away the prefaces that Shelley used, in each case, as part of his framing and distancing effect: they are important to the way in which the poem is to be presented, and to be approached.

She also follows the Victorians in getting various telling details wrong. Thus _The Indian Girl's Serenade_ is printed as _The Indian Serenade_; the change allowed the Victorians to treat the poem as a personal lyric rather than a performance piece, and to marvel over Shelley's exquisite but rather weak sensibility: "O lift me from the grass! I die, I faint, I fall!"

The name change conceals the fact that this poem was written for soprano performance (to a tune from Mozart's _La Clemenza di Tito_). Its charm is that it allows the performer opportunities to both use feminine wiles and at the same time mock them. The "faint" at the end of the song is best performed, by the singer, with one eye open to judge the effect. But Quigly knows nothing of this, referring to Shelley's "wholly personal love poems" in her wholly clueless introduction.

Quigly's introduction clearly places her as a late surviving Victorian, who has read a little Leavis and Elliot but nothing of the critical work done on Shelley up to this anthology's first publication date, which is 1956. Nothing has changed in this recent re-publication, despite the rich and fascinating work in Shelley criticism and Shelley studies in the years since Leavis. But Quigly wouldn't be the person to guide you through that material anyway.

I recommend the Norton Selection of Shelley's poetry and prose instead, with a much better and wider selection, and intelligent introduction and notes. And it's quite reasonable to want the romantic (in the Valentine's Day sense) Shelley, though that is only one side of a multi-faceted poet of astounding technical skill, sophistication and range: but for that side of Shelley I'd recommend Richard Hughes' _Shelley on Love_. Either selection is far better than this vapid and misleading collection of prettiana.

Cheers!

Laon
PS Also avoid Penguin's Poet to Poet series' Shelley entry. 20th century poetaster Kathryn Raine's Shelley selection is if anything slighter than Quigly's.

Shelly was a master at combining images and creating a world that was uniquley his own. The problem is, that world seemed to consist mainly of foggy sea shores at sunrise and forest cathedrals. While there is nothing wrong with visiting such a world, there is very little reason to stay there.

Shelly's lyrics are uneven, sometimes resorting to rhymes that make me cringe. His strength is iambic prose. Even this suffers from what appears to be a limited vocabulary which para doxically inclused eccentric spellings like "aery".

Having said all that, I must admit that I am in sypmpathy with Shelly. He dwells in a solitary world of fairy beauty that is the spiritual home of every soul in search of Truth. This goes a long way toward forgiving his somewhat middle ground talent.

"Queen Mab" and "Alastor" are the best peoms in this collection. Most of the other seem to be either comments or footnotes to these. They encompass Shelly's strange universe beautifully.

"Alastor" is the strongest in terms of imagery reflecting isolation and the hard choice to foresake worldy pleasure to find a higher truth. All sorts of moonlit coves lie just past the crashing waves of the main stream. One only wishes that Shelly could see the beauty he was leaving was a part of what he sought.

I recomment this edition, and the critical essay at its beginning, as a starting point for study of Shelly and his work.

And my favorite edition of Shelley's poems. Shelley might be less accessible than Keats, Byron, and Wordsworth, and even Auden said he liked something in all English poetry except Shelley's. It's true-- one can have too much Shelley. He seemed to write first and breathe second. He was concerned with everything-- politics, philosophy, morality-- and he wasn't shy about knocking out a few thousand verses to explain his concerns. So I would not want a complete edition. Some collections, however, omit too much, or include what we would rather skip. Not so in the Everyman's Pocket Poets series. This has many-- perhaps all-- of the greater short lyrics, a generous serving of the philosophical poems, and just a touch of "Prometheus Unbound" and other lengthy works. Shelley seemed to be at his best when he was struck by a single moment of inspiration, such as in "To The Moon," which he left incomplete (or was it "The Waning Moon"?). Of course, there is a perfection in his carefully-wrought masterpieces "To A Skylark," "Ode To The West Wind," and "The Cloud." His rhythms are subtle yet brash, and the tunefulness of his language rivals Milton's-- more lush than the other Romantics, I think, but rarely clogged and noisy. This is "serious stuff," but also youthful and spirited. Shelley seemed to devour everything that came his way, with an idealist's vision but a realist's sense. And he experimented with meter without abandoning the natural cadence of English. I love this book also because it omits any wordy introduction or worthless footnotes. I read the poetry here, by itself, and turn to other books to fill in the details. For this book is life, where critical apparati seem less important.

This book is rather slow in the beginning, but worth it when one finally gets into it.

As a reader of modern times one cannot help but to compare today's standards to those of 80 years ago. Edie's husband is quite cruel to her. Whereas today there are so many ways for a woman to get out of a marriage like that, in those days, she was trapped. Even her family seems to turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to her husband's shortcomings, seeing only that she is a married woman, and therefore 'secure.'

The reader sees Edie become mature and insightful as the book moves along. In my opinion, however, there is not enough said about Fred, the reader never feels as though they 'know' him.

This story is haunting in the fact that it is true. One almost feels Edie's helplessness and hopelessness as she writes letters to Fred from prison, letters she knows he will never see. In todays American courts the appeals would have gone on for years and years.

Fred and Edie is based on the real life murder case of Frederick Bywaters and Edith Thompson who were hanged for the murder of Edie's husband Percy in 1920's England. Jill Dawson deftly blends factual material such as newspaper articles with fictional material in order to not only tell the tale of the lovers themselves, but to give the reader an insight into the lives of women during that era. How many women, like Edie, we wonder, married for stability and social conventions in order to find themselves trapped in loveless, violent marriages? Escape, appears to come for Edie in the shape of her sister's young boyfriend, Fred, with whom she has a passionate love affair. However, Percy refuses to grant her a divorce,a refusal that ultimately leads to the tragic deaths of all three of them.

Branded "silly and vain" at the start of the novel, we see Edie achieving emotional maturity and insight through a series of letters she writes to Fred from her prison cell. Issues of her culpability, sexuality and the role of women in this pre-feminist society are gradually revealed to us, leaving us wondering if she was a cold calculating killer or the victim of a society that denied her justice.

An artfully-written novel of what a British reviewer called a modern Madame Bovary, "Fred & Edie" is a compelling look at a crime that captivated England in the 1920s. As much a portrait of a changing era as a crime story, it is less about love than about dreams of love versus the harsh reality of a cruel, boorish husband. While at first Edith Thompson seems the "vain, silly" woman others thought her, the author beautifully develops and shows us her depth and longing until we are both transported and moved by her plight. Many images will linger long after the reader is finished.

...which is a good thing, since I don't (and don't care to) know about the sport. The testimony of Studd, his many mission fields, how he proposed to his future wife, the circumstances of his death, are great reading and an inspiration to all Christians.

A great biography! A great cricket player who gave his life whole-heartedly to the Lord and was greatly used by Him. I don't know much about cricket, but I like sports, and really enjoyed and was challenged by this book!

This looks to be an excellent edition, and it's certainly a relief that Shelley is finally being presented complete and unaltered, and with an entourage of thousands of helpful notes.
I give only three stars to this particular volume, though, because it only presents about a hundred and fifty pages of actual Shelley; and, since Shelley made the jump from mediocrity to greatness only after writing quite a lot; and also considering how much time has already passed since this first volume came out: it will be quite a while before Reiman reaches the material worth paying money(per slim volume) for. The Longman version (pricier per volume, but each containing more) will most likely be complete a bit sooner.
So, I and all Shelley lovers wish this enterprise the best good luck; but might prefer its volumes (how many total? 7?) to be released in reverse order at this rate. For now we're stuck with the antiquated Modern Library edition for so many poems.

The state of Shelley publishing has been one of the literary scandals of the last 200-odd years.

Mary Shelley, Shelley's widow and first editor, did her work under threat. Shelley's father Sir Timothy Shelley wanted his son's memory forgotten. Since Sir Timothy was paying a "pension" of 150 pounds a year to his son's widow and child, he was able to blackmail Mary Shelley out of writing a biography or issuing a complete works, by threatening to cut off her income. The readiness to starve his own grandson to strike at his dead son is villainy of the sort you'd expect to find in a Victorian novel, not in life. But there it was; the poet's father was a Bad Man, and no doubt part of the model for the occasional Bad Fathers (the Cenci, Jupiter etc) in Shelley's work.

So Mary Shelley's work, while Sir Timothy was still alive, publishing the most important poems with notes that collectively add up to a kind of biography, was an act of loyalty to her husband, and not without courage.

Her successors deserve less praise. Though occasionally ingenious in correcting details of text and recovering poems from notebook fragments, they betrayed Shelley. Some poems they deliberately omitted for their radicalism: the 1820 ballad, "Young Parson Williams", was one example. Other poems they left in a bowlerised state, in particular _Laon and Cythna_, published with its religious, sexual and political radicalism blunted as _The Revolt of Islam_. Still other poems were distorted, by carelessness (eg the missing stanza of _On the Head of the Medusa_, the missing lines in _Mont Blanc_) or by sentimentality.

A glaring example of sentimental distortion is the breaking off of the _Triumph of Life_ fragment at the line: " 'Then what is life,' I cried." Shelley's draft continues for four lines, showing that the dark vision of the procession of life, that has dominated the poem till this point, is to "roll" on and out of the poem. One section of the poem had ended and another was about to start. The whole poem, if it had been finished, probably involved a movement from despair into light in the manner of _Prometheus Unbound_. But the absence of those lines led many commentators to believe that the poem was intended to be only a statement of despair. (Rather as if we had Act I of _Prometheus Unbound_ but not the later sections of that poem.)

Also, Shelley wrote "I said", not "I cried". The Victorian editors substituted "cried" because "crying" gives us a properly "romantic" Shelley, less like the real, controlled artist. And "cried" furnished a spurious rhyme with "wayside" and "abide" in the lines above - though at the same time distorting Shelley's terza rima.

And stopping the poem at that dramatic point gave us another Victorian myth: the young poet, defeated by the Great Question and failing to find an answer in verse, plunges beneath the waves in search of final truth. A romantic suicide instead of a pointless accidental drowning (or quite possibly murder by an Italian fishing smack, intending piracy). Without digressing into the many reasons why the suicide story is nonsense, it can be observed in this context that distortion of Shelley's poetry inevitably leads to distortions of biography as well as of interpretation.

And there things have stood, for over 100 years. Oxford University Press could reasonably have claimed to be the guardian of Shelley's poetry, and they have failed their trust shamefully. Oxford began publishing a genuinely complete poetical works in the 1970s, edited by Neville Rogers. This project mysteriously stopped after just two of the projected four volumes. However none of Rogers' work on Shelley's poems up to 1817 has been incorporated into any of the one-volume Shelley editions, including Oxford's. Instead the unsatisfactory Victorian text, with all its distortions, bowdlerisations, suppressions, omissions and shoddinesses has been allowed to stand.

The first volume of this four-volume project gives us every reason to hope we will finally - after nearly 200 years - be able to read Shelley's poems without distortion, censorship or omission. This volume contains what would generally be considered to be Shelley's juvenilia: for example the intriguing mini-epic _The Wandering Jew_ in which Ahasuerus appears not as a monster but as a sympathetic character for one of the first times in European literature.

And we get the political passion and the outrageous parodies of the _Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson_. To get an idea of the sheer outrageousness of the _Posthumous Fragments_, imagine a contemporary poet publishing scurrilous satires and angry political poems as if they were written by John Hinckley (the guy who tried to assassinate Reagan), and smuggled out of his cell. Then imagine that one of the poems included an exchange between Che Guevera and Pattie Hearst, in which they sing, in short panting lines, of oral sex. That gets you some idea of the naughtiness, in 1810 terms, of the _Epithalamium for Francis Revaillac and Charlotte Corday_.

And Fraistat's notes on the poems, biographical and interpetative, are first-rate. There are places he can be argued with (for example the events - background to two verse letters that may be the worst poems of Shelley's life - concerning a possible affair between Shelley's mother and Fergus Graham, where I think Shelley had inside information and his interpretation can be taken seriously) but he never strays from evidence and his interpretations of events and of poems are always reasonable and insightful.

The next volume will bring us Shelley's first great poem, _Queen Mab_, also _Alastor_, the shorter poems_Mont Blanc_, and the _Hymn to Intellectual Beauty_, and perhaps the restored epic _Laon and Cythna_. This is a great project, and my only criticism is that it at least 100 years overdue. My absolute highest recommendation to Shelley readers. Note to Fraistat et al: More volumes please!

Cheers!

Laon (no relation)

An excellent book written by William Steven Prince. The book is centered around Mr. Princes Uncle, Percy Stevens and the Troopship Tuscania. The book ends with the Goldstar Mothers pilgrimage to war graves in 1930. I recommend this book for anyone who had family aboard the Tuscania.

Crusade & Pilgrimage is a historically acurate account of the World War I troopship Tuscania which was torpedoed and sunk in the North Channel between Ireland and Scotland. The book is centered around Percy Stevens, a soldier in the 20th Engineers. Percy, perished the night the Tuscania went down. Crusade and Pilgrimage also touches base with the Gold Star Mothers pilgrimage to war cemeterys in Europe in 1930. I highly recommend this book for anyone who had family aboard the Tuscania. The many photos in this book helps illistrate the events as you progress through the book. Book was written by Percy Stevens nephew, William Steven Prince in 1986.