The magnificent collection of "Shelley and His Circle" manuscripts in the Carl H. Pforzheimer Library is one of our finest sources for the English Romantic movement. This edition presents the more than 450 manuscripts from 1772 to 1822, over half of them by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Volumes I and II include a first accurate printing of Shelley's letters to Thomas Hogg during a crucial period of his life; another series of letters records a struggle between Forman and Silsbee for acquisition of Shelley's papers that was the background for Henry James's Aspern Papers; Thomas Love Peacock, William Godwin, Leigh Hunt, Mary Wollstonecraft, and others are represented by materials (most of them previously unpublished) that throw much new light on their lives and times. The Peacock and part of the Wollstonecraft manuscripts were edited by Eleanor L. Nicholes, and The Diary of Harriet Grove (Shelley's boyhood sweetheart) by Frederick L. Jones. New and effective editorial, bibliographical and typographical methods were devised to deal with special problems.

Volumes V and VI of Shelley and His Circle, edited by Donald H. Reiman, make available a further portion of the Shelley manuscript materials in the Carl H. Pforzheimer Library. These two volumes continue in the format and style of the preceding ones. They progress chronologically from late 1816 through 1819, tracing the growth of the poet's friendship with Leigh Hunt and his circle (including John Keats) and the blossoming of Shelley's poetic maturity. These volumes record the writing of The Revolt of Islam, Shelley's epic on the lessons of the French Revolution; the poet's journey to Italy; the deaths of his and Mary's two children; and his literary annus mirabilis in 1819. During this year he wrote Prometheus Unbound, The Cenci, and A Philosophical View of Reform, which is here presented in a corrected text. The sequence closes in late December 1819 with a series of letters that signal the beginning of Shelley's sense of isolation from his English friends and publisher. Among the 175 manuscripts presented in full diplomatic transcription are 82 by Shelley and numerous others by Godwin, Hunt, and Byron, as well as important hitherto unpublished early letters by Edward John Trelawny, and letters and journals of Keats, Peacock, Mary Shelley, Claire Clairmont, Thomas Jefferson Hogg, and Edward E. Williams. An Appendix of eleven early letters and poems by Byron completes this set. Altogether, Shelley and His Circle will encompass a half-century of interconnected biographies and will capture the literary and intellectual tenor of the Romantic era.

The publication of Volumes III and IV of Shelley and His Circle under the editorial auspices of Kenneth Neill Cameron makes available a further portion of the Shelley manuscript materials in the Carl H. Pforzheimer Library. These two volumes continue in the format and style of Volumes I and II, which received the critical acclaim of, among others, John Ciardi, who lauded Cameron and his contributing editors for rescuing "the material from felonious footnotery primarily by enclosing it in a continuous narrative that contains detailed introductions to each of the characters of the circle, and a general background of their relationships and of the times." Volumes III and IV progress chronologically through Shelley's life, beginning with the early years of Shelley's marriage to Harriet Westbrook, where Volume II ended, and concluding with her suicide. Among the manuscripts are twelve letters and literary pieces by Byron including the first of his "separation" poem "Fare Thee Well," the expanded 1814 journal of Claire Clairmont, the curious triangular correspondence of Shelley, Mary Godwin, and Thomas Jefferson Hogg, Shelley's annotated copy of Queen Mab, and the suicide letter Harriet Shelley wrote a few hours before she drowned in the Serpentine. A number of maps especially prepared for this edition and other supplementary illustrations enhance the impeccable scholarship of these volumes which, with the projected publication of the remaining materials, will present a half century of interconnected biographies and will suggest the literary and intellectual tenor of the Romantic era. The Pforzheimer collection, exceeded only by that at the Bodleian in the number of Shelley and Shelleyana manuscripts, reflects the personal interests of Carl H. Pforzheimer, who put together one of the notable private libraries of modern times. Before his death in 1957, he planned the form of publication for his collection, designing it not only for the academic use of scholars but also as a stimulating and readable set for the enthusiastic layman.