1810–1816: ‘Breathing Hatred to Government & Religion’

Abstract

When Shelley went up to Oxford in October 1810, Timothy Shelley, who had accompanied his son, took him to the booksellers and printers, Slatter and Munday, and told them: ‘My son here has a literary turn; he is already an author, and do pray indulge him in his printing freaks.’1 Given the chance, most young writers are only too ready to rush into print; what is striking about Shelley is that he managed to persuade publishers to take on his work. By the time he came to Oxford he was already the author of two recently published works: a Gothic novel, Zastrozzi, and (with his sister, Elizabeth) a volume of bad poems, Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire. Another Gothic novel, St. Irvyne; or, The Rosicrucian, was ‘almost if not entirely complete’2 and was published by Stockdale in December 1810, while, in his first term at Oxford, Shelley published a collection of poems, Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson. According to Hogg, his friend and unreliable though entertaining biographer, these poems began life as serious compositions, but Shelley was helped by Hogg to convert them into pastiche and attribute them to a mad washerwoman who had tried to assassinate George III.3 Swelling this list of the poet’s early compositions are The Wandering Jew (unpublished ‘in book form until the Shelley Society solemnly brought it forth in 1887’)4 and The Necessity of Atheism, a pamphlet which was to lead to the expulsion of Shelley and Hogg from Oxford.KeywordsFrench RevolutionConstant ConjunctionYoung WriterGreat PoetPetty BourgeoisieThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.