Add MS 37496

CORRESPONDENCE Of Percy Bysshe Shelley and Miss Elizabeth Hitchener; 5 June, 1811-18 June, 1812. The correspondence covers the period of Shelley's first marriage (28 Aug. 1811), his residence at York and Keswick, his expedition to Ireland, and his return to Nantgwyllt and Cwm Elan in Radnorshire, and ends shortly before Miss Hitchenor's arrival to stay with the Shelleys at Lynmouth. It includes 44 letters from Shelley to Miss Hitchener, one from Mrs. Shelley (besides four additions to letters from her husband), and 12 letters from Miss Hitchener (9 to Shelley and 3 to Mrs. Shelley). There are also two sheets from Irish newspapers, bearing slight sketches and a few lines of writing by Shelley. Five of Shelley's letters contain verses, viz., "Maiden, quench the glare of sorrow" (f. 57), "She was an aged woman, and the years" (f. 78), "The Devil went out a-walking one day" (f. 80 b), "Brothers, between you and me" (f. 90), and a transcript of Wordsworth's "Poet's Epitaph" (f. 76). At the beginning (f. 1) is a long note by W. M. Rossetti on the history of the correspondence, dated 2 Aug. 1874. A transcript of the correspondence, made by Rossetti, was used by Prof. E. Dowden for his Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1886, and extracts from it are printed there. Edited by B. Dobell in 1908. Paper; ff. 123. Folio. Presented by the Rev. Charles Hargrove, to whom the letters were bequeathed in March, 1907, by Mr. Charlotte Mary Slack, of Croydon, with a requet that he would eventually bequeath them to the British Museum.