Vintage 1947 Shelley Volumes I and II Includes The Original Frankenstein Idea For Sale

Book Details
Shelley Volumes I and II by Newman Ivey White (1892-1948). Each volume is a Borzoi Book published by Alfred A. Knopf in January, 1947. Vintage Second Printing.Author Background
Newman Ivey White was born in Statesville, North Carolina and attended Trinity College before it became part of Duke University. After he finished his education at Harvard, he spent nearly three decades as a Professor of English at Duke University, while building a reputation as one of America\'s foremost Shelley scholars. His career spanned some of the most turbulent decades in modern history, including World War I, the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, World War II, and the immediate postwar years. Newman dedicated most of his adult life to the research of Percy Bysshe Shelley. For more than twenty years he gathered letters, journals, manuscripts, correspondence, and surviving records from Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley, Harriet Westbrook, Claire Clairmont, Lord Byron, and the remarkable circle of people who shaped their lives, gradually assembling the material that became this landmark, monumental two-volume biography of Shelley.Newman\'s Story Outside The Story
Neman\'s interests also reached far beyond Romantic literature. Long before preserving folk music became a widespread academic effort, he traveled through North Carolina recording songs directly from oral tradition, work that eventually led to the publication of American Negro Folk Songs in 1928. By documenting songs he personally heard and collecting material that might otherwise have disappeared, he helped preserve a portion of America\'s cultural heritage for future generations. The influence of his scholarship continued long after his death in 1948. Duke University later established the Newman Ivey White Professorship in his honor, one of the university\'s highest forms of recognition and a lasting tribute to the impact he made as a scholar, teacher, and researcher. His professional papers, correspondence, manuscripts, and research materials remain preserved for future generations in Duke University\'s archives, documenting a career that connected him to an international network of scholars, researchers, collectors, and publishers.Percy\'s Story Outside The Story
Percy Bysshe Shelley was born into privilege, yet much of his life became a battle against the expectations of his family and society. He was educated at Eton College and later at Oxford, where he formed a close intellectual partnership with Thomas Jefferson Hogg. In 1814, after they published and distributed a controversial pamphlet, The Necessity of Atheism which challenged religious belief, he was expelled from Oxford. This event severely damaged the relationship with his father Sir Timothy Shelley, a Member of Parliament and 2nd Baronet of Castle Goring. Shortly after his expulsion, Percy met sixteen-year-old Harriet Westbrook and they eloped to Scotland to marry. Shelley\'s father reacted by cutting off financial support which caused years of debt, instability, borrowing, and dependence on loans and allowances. Harriet and Percy had two children together, but the marriage steadily deteriorated as Shelley\'s interests turned toward philosophy, politics, and new intellectual relationships. Percy admired philosopher William Godwin\'s radical political ideas and sought him out as both mentor and intellectual guide, encountering an extraordinary circle of thinkers and writers. He also met Godwin\'s daughter, sixteen year-old Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin. According to scholarship accounts Percy fell deeply in love with her. In 1814, while still legally married to Harriet, Percy and Mary Godwin ran away together and traveled across Europe. During this time, the unmarried couple gave birth to a daughter, who died one month later. Their relationship attracted widespread criticism from family members and acquaintances, creating a public scandal that shocked English society. Two years later in 1816, Harriet drowned herself in London\'s Serpentine lake while pregnant and living apart from Shelley. Included in Volume I is a facsimile of \"Harriet\'s Last Letter,\" a deeply personal document often described as reading like a suicide note. Just a few weeks after Harriet\'s death, Percy and Mary were married. In an attempt to escape debt, health concerns, and ongoing social hostility, the Shelleys left England in 1818 and moved to Italy, a place of refuge and profound sorrow. Percy endured the deaths of his children, personal losses, the death of his friend John Keats and ongoing financial pressures. During these years he produced many of the works that secured his place as one of the great Romantic poets in English literature. His works include Prometheus Unbound and Ode to the West Wind. His elegy Adonais, written after John Keats\'s death, is considered one of the great memorial poems ever written. Right before his thirtieth birthday, Percy\'s life abruptly ended. On July 8, 1822, a violent storm sank his schooner The Don Juan off the Italian coast. Whether viewed as fact, legend, or a mixture of both, the story that followed became of literature\'s enduring legends. Percy\'s body was cremated on a beach near Viareggio in the presence of friends including Lord Byron, and according to longstanding accounts, his heart survived the flames and was recovered from the funeral pyre. Mary Shelley preserved the heart for the remainder of her life, a final chapter in one of the most famous literary partnerships of the nineteenth century.Mary\'s Story Outside The Story
Mary Shelley entered the world surrounded by extraordinary intellect and immediate tragedy. Her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, died only eleven days after giving birth. Raised in the household of her father philosopher William Godwin, she grew up among writers, scientists, reformers, and publishers while also navigating a difficult relationship with her stepmother, Mary Jane Clairmont. When she was sixteen years old Mary met Percy Bysshe Shelley and they quickly formed a powerful intellectual and emotional bond. In 1814, Mary and Percy ran away to continental Europe while he was still married to Harriet Westbrook, creating a public scandal that shocked English society. The unmarried couple endured financial instability, social condemnation, family conflict and a life marked by repeated loss, starting with the death of their first child just one month after she was born. In 1816, just two weeks after Harriet Westbrook took her own life, Mary and Percy married. In the summer of that same year, the couple joined Lord Byron, Claire Clairmont, and John Polidori at Villa Diodati for one of the most celebrated literary gatherings in history. Cold, rainy weather forced the group to stay indoors for long periods. Lord Byron proposed a ghost-story challenge. During a conversation between Percy and Byron on whether a corpse could be reanimated through electricity, eighteen year old Mary developed the idea of a mechanical creature brought to life and driven toward criminal behavior by the absence of human sympathy. Her idea led to the creation of Frankenstein. This information is documented in Volume 1 page 444, titled the Origin of Mary\'s Frankenstein. The Shelleys moved to Italy in 1818, a place of a refuge and profound sorrow. The couple had three more children together but two of them died and only their fourth child survived to adulthood. Mary\'s grief appears repeatedly throughout her journals, letters, and later writings, some of which are included in these volumes. And in 1822, Percy\'s sudden death left Mary a widow at only twenty-four with a young son and limited financial resources. Rather than withdrawing from public life, she devoted decades to preserving, editing, organizing, and defending her husband\'s literary legacy. Many scholars believe that without Mary\'s efforts, Percy Shelley would not occupy the place he does in literary history today. She also built her own career as a novelist, biographer, editor, and travel writer. Some of her works Valperga, The Last Man, and Falkner demonstrated her range as a novelist and thinker. The Last Man in particular has attracted modern attention because it imagines a future global plague that devastates humanity, making it one of the most remarkable early examples of post-apocalyptic fiction. Mary\'s final years were marked by recurring health problems, severe headaches, and neurological symptoms. After her death in 1851, family members discovered keepsakes she had preserved for decades, including locks of hair, notebooks, and relics associated with Percy. These discoveries reinforced the depth of their love and the bond that had connected them throughout her life. More than two centuries after its publication, Frankenstein continues to influence literature, film, science fiction, horror, ethics, medicine, and popular culture around the world.Collectible Notes
This 1947 vintage second printing was issued two years after World War II ended. Spanning 1,536 pages across two volumes, White\'s research follows Percy Shelley from childhood through Oxford, Harriet Westbrook, Mary Godwin, Lord Byron, Geneva, the origins of Frankenstein, and the final years of his life. The set contains portraits, manuscript facsimiles, illustrations, and primary-source material drawn from decades of scholarly investigation. Particularly notable are the color frontispiece believed to reproduce a lost miniature portrait of Shelley, the dedicated Mary Shelley portrait in Volume II, facsimile material including a manuscript page from Prometheus Unbound, discussions of the Villa Diodati ghost-story challenge, the creation of Frankenstein, Harriet Westbrook\'s final letter, and extensive coverage of the people and events that shaped the Romantic movement. Blocks of surviving uncut leaves remain throughout Volume I, preserving a feature that can never be replaced once opened.Volume I Condition
Blue cloth boards are clean with minor discolorations that appear through the cloth. Book edges, corners and spine ends have minor rubbing from shelf wear. Gold gilt illustration on the front cover of a seated winged figure holding a bird still gleams in the light. The gold gilt lettering and design on the spine has some rubbing but the shine remains. Endpapers are clean and age-toned. Bindings are strong and fully intact. This volume contains blocks of uncut leaves with varied page sizes for the cut pages. 748 total pages are age-toned and free from markups, creases, tears and stains, and the black and white plates and illustrations are well-preserved. White guides the reader through Shelley\'s life year by year, with the year placed at the top of each page. Volume I follows Shelley from his birth in 1792 through 1818 and ends on page 560. Pages 561-748 are the Sources and Notes for each chapter. Volume II Condition
Blue cloth boards are clean with minor discolorations that appear through the cloth. Book edges, corners and spine ends have minor rubbing from shelf wear. Gold gilt illustration on the front cover of a seated winged figure holding a bird still gleams in the light. The gold gilt lettering and design on the spine has some rubbing but the shine remains. Endpapers are clean and age-toned. Bindings are strong and fully intact. 788 total pages are age-toned and free from markups, creases, tears and stains, and the black and white plates and illustrations are well-preserved. White guides the reader through Shelley\'s life year by year, with the year placed at the top of each page. Volume II follows Shelley from 1818 through 1822 and ends on page 453. Pages 454-550 contain seven Appendices, including Mary Shelley\'s Reading Lists and Documents Concerning Elena Adelaide Shelley, their child who lived for fifteen months. Pages 551-642 are the Sources and Notes for each chapter followed by an extensive Index in roman numerals that is 146 pages long.Both volumes are in Very Good vintage condition. Combined together, there are 1,536 total pages between the volumes. Each book measures 9.5\" long, 6.5\" wide and 2.25\" deep. The set weighs 5 lbs. 13.5 oz.