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Until 1990 Shelley's 'Peterloo Writings' of 1820 were not published in
Britain. Editors of his work would not publish 'Mask of Anarchy' or his
polemic prose. The poetry/publishing world split Percey Byshe into two
people: the intellectual of 'Queen Mab' and 'Prometheus Unbound' and the
"juvenile" who extended Thomas Paine's writings - who was thereby, in my
view, the bridge between Blake, Chartism and Marx.
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I'm a little confused here, Rupert -- are you saying that "The Mask of
Anarchy" wasn't published till the nineties? I seem to remember reading it
in the sixties, in the same editions, presumably, as the rest of his output.
And given that (despite being over-long) it's the only poem by Shelley I've
any time for ...
Maybe I should look out for the other 'Peterloo Writings', maybe Shelley
isn't as bad a poet as I always thought and the Mask isn't a one-off.
Robin
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