COLERIDGE, Samuel Taylor; Percy Bysshe Shelley; John Keats.

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The Poetical Works. First edition of the first anthology of these poetic peers, also constituting the first collected edition of Shelley and Keats. Galignani produced notably accurate pirated publications of English poets who did not hold copyright abroad. This internationally distributed edition became "a principal cause of the rapid growth of Keats's reputation among American readers" (Stillinger p. 116) and is also significant for Mary Shelley's contribution.Each poet is prefaced with a memoir, Shelley's incorporating his wife's preface to his Posthumous Poems (1824). This 1829 edition marked Mary's only foray into publishing her late husband's work in the years since Posthumous Poems. "Prohibited by Sir Timothy Shelley from bringing Shelley's name before the public in return for her repayable allowance, she obviously believed she could help this French publication with impunity and thereby keep both her commitments: she would not bring Shelley forward, yet his works would be kept in the public notice" (Bennett, p. 301). It was pirated editions such as this that persuaded her father-in-law, Sir Timothy, that all hope of obscurity had passed, and in 1839 Mary was allowed to prepare a standalone collected edition, provided she included only a minimal amount of biographical information.

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