Ashley MS 4040

'The Daemon of the World': a poem by P. B. Shelley; 1815. A copy of the printed work Queen Mab, 1813, bearing Shelley's extensive autograph emendations made when he was recasting Cantos I and II as 'The Daemon of the World' in 1815. The emendations are found on ff. 3-10, 11-13, 16b and 17 (pp. 1-5, 17-21, 28, 29). There is a drawing of a tree on the front cover. All of the leaf containing pp. 239 and 240 below the rule on p. 240 is missing (it contained 'Printed by P. B. Shelley, No. 23, Chapel Street, Grosvenor Square, LONDON'. In original boards. Another copy of Queen Mab, 1813, emended by Shelley is in the Pforzheimer Library, New York. That copy bears emendations to Cantos I, II, IV, V, VI, VIII, and IX. For the relationship between the two copies see The Complete Poetry Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, ed. Neville Rogers, 1975, Vol. II, pp. 332-334, where the present MS. is referred to as BMb. The Pforzheimer MS. appears to be a draft, the present MS. a fair copy. The latter does not, however, seem to derive from the former, but to have been copied from another draft, now lost. Ashley Library Catalogue, v, pp. 57-58.

Octavo; ff. ii+122 (pp. iv+240).

Poetry ENGLISH: Percy Bysshe Shelley, poet: Poem, 'The Daemon of the World', by Percy Bysshe Shelley: 1815: Printed copy of Queen Mab, 1813, with autogr. revisions to Cantos I and II.