in print. In preparing the volume I have worked as far as possible on
the principle of recognizing the editio princeps as the primary
textual authority. I have not been content to reprint Mrs. Shelley's
recension of 1839, or that of any subsequent editor of the "Poems".
The present text is the result of a fresh collation of the early
editions; and in every material instance of departure from the wording
of those originals the rejected reading has been subjoined in a
footnote. Again, wherever--as in the case of "Julian and
Maddalo"--there has appeared to be good reason for superseding the
authority of the editio princeps, the fact is announced, and the
substituted exemplar indicated, in the Prefatory Note. in the case of
a few pieces extant in two or more versions of debatable authority the
alternative text or texts will be found at the [end] of the [relevant
work]; but it may be said once for all that this does not pretend to
be a variorum edition, in the proper sense of the term--the textual
apparatus does not claim to be exhaustive. Thus I have not thought it
necessary to cumber the footnotes with every minute grammatical
correction introduced by Mrs. Shelley, apparently on her own
authority, into the texts of 1839; nor has it come within the scheme
of this edition to record every conjectural emendation adopted or
proposed by Rossetti and others in recent times. But it is hoped that,
up to and including the editions of 1839 at least, no important
variation of the text has been overlooked. Whenever a reading has been
adopted on manuscript authority, a reference to the particular source
has been added below.

I have been chary of gratuitous interference with the punctuation of
the manuscripts and early editions; in this direction, however, some
revision was indispensable. Even in his most carefully finished "fair
copy" Shelley under-punctuates (Thus in the exquisite autograph "Hunt