Percy Bysshe Shelley, Queen Mab, London 1821
Queen Mab was privately printed in 1813 but remained unknown until the pirated edition of 1821 which Shelley endeavoured to suppress. This is a copy of the variant issue from which some material was omitted. Through this and other unauthorised editions, Queen Mab became the first of Shelley’s poems to be widely read; through its outspoken advocacy of free thought, it obtained a celebrity long denied to his other writings.
