Percy Shelley's Works

• Date: 1800 - 1850

• Location: Europe

• Subject: Political/Economic/Social Opinion & Sexuality & Religious

• Medium: Literature

• Artist/Author/Producer: Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1792-1822)

• Confronting Bodies: Oxford University, the Society for the Suppression of Vice

• Dates of action: 1811-42

• Location: England

Description of the Art Work

• "The Necessity of Atheism", 1811:
• "Queen Mab, a philosophical Poem", 1813:
• "Alastor", 1816:
• "The Revolt of Islam", 1817:
• "Prometheus Unbound", 1818:
• "The Cenci", 1819:

Description of incident

1811 England: Shelley and his friend Hogg were dismissed from Oxford as mutineers against academic authority, for publishing "The Necessity of Atheism."

1816 "Alastor" was rejected by a library on grounds of immorality.

1822 In 1813, at 21 Shelley had published "Queen Mab, a philosophical Poem" in a very small private edition. In 1817 it was cited in his custody trial to show the author was an atheist and free-love advocate. In 1821 William Clarke issued an edition of "Queen Mab, a philosophical Poem" , and in 1822 he was prosecuted by the Society for the Suppression of Vice.

1840-1842 Edward Moxon, a leading publisher, began issuing Shelley's works. He and three other publisher-booksellers were prosecuted, partly to test if there was one law for "the low booksellers of the Strand" and another for more aristocratic ones, who were freely publishing books at least as outspoken as 'Queen Mab, a philosophical Poem'."

Results of incident

1822 England: "Queen Mab, a philosophical Poem" could not be copyrighted, and up to 1845, was pirated in 14 or more editions. In 1821 William Clarke issued one of those, and in 1822 he was jailed for four months. Also in the 1820's, Richard Carlile was jailed for publishing the poem, among others.

1840-1842: Moxon was released, but had to give up all copies of his edition.

One reason for official hostility to this book in this entire period was that it became a basic text for lower and middle-class radicals and for the Chartist and Owenite reform movements. The period of Shelley's life was an especially repressive one, politically, in Britain, a nation badly frightened by the French Revolution.

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Record no 250