SHELLEY AND HIS PUBLISHERS
(With Some New Letters)
By ROGER INGPEN
SHELLEY'S transactions with his publishers were numerous; the books of no great English poet, and certainly none whose literary career at the most extended for not more than thirteen years, can have borne the names of so many separate firms. Until he placed his poems in the hands of the Olliers, almost every book was issued by a new publisher. Every one of his works was a failure, and only one went into a second edition; his wide fame as a poet was entirely posthumous. Although none of Shelley's publishers was sufficiently interested to repeat the experience of issuing a second book by him, he was not discouraged by this want of sympathy. He continued until the end to write and to print his works at his own expense, and, if possible, to find publishers for them. In the absence of a publisher he issued them himself. He began and ended by verse-writing, but in the interval his work was varied enough, comprising novels, drama, philosophy, satire, religious polemics, and politics. In recalling some facts connected with Shelley's literary enterprises a curious repetition of names and incidents will be noticeable. There were two separate publishers of the name of Stockdale with whom he treated, one in Pall Mall and the other in Dublin. There was an Eton and an Eaton, the former a printer in Dublin, and the latter the publisher of the Third Part of Paine's Age of Reason, on behalf of whom Shelley wrote his Letter to Lord Ellenborough. Stockdale, of Pall Mall, and Munday, of Oxford, both listened with astonishment to his unrestrained conversation on matters of religion, and endeavoured to lead him into an orthodox frame of mind. His boyish appearance and engaging enthusiasm undoubtedly made a strong appeal to them. There was a prolonged similarity in the fate of some of his early productions. Practically the whole edition of the Victor and Cazire volume was destroyed at the author's request, and The Necessity of Atheism and the Letter to Lord Ellenborough shared a like fate, though without Shelley's consent.
In the year 1809 Shelley and his cousin, Tom Medwin, wrote a poem in the style of Scott's narrative verse on The Wandering Jew. It was sent to Scott's publisher, Ballantyne, of Edinburgh, who replied that it was "better suited to the character and liberal feelings of the English than the bigoted spirit" which the writer declared "yet pervades many cultivated minds in this country. Even Walter Scott is assailed on all hands at present by our Scotch spiritual and evangelical magazines and institutions for having promulgated atheistical doctrines with The Lady of the Lake." This astonishing statement was evidently an excuse for declining The Wandering Jew, which found no publisher during Shelley's lifetime. He was, however, at that date busily occupied with his novel Zastrozzi, which he offered to Longmans. He may have been drawn to that firm as the publishers of a romance, which he is said to have admired and indeed to have imitated in Zastrozzi, entitled Zofloya, or the Moor, by Mrs. Byron, or Charlotte Dacre, better known by her pseudonym, Rosa Malilda. Although rejected by Longmans, Zastrozzi was published while Shelley was still at Eton by another Paternoster Row firm, Wilkie and Robinson. We are told that the young author received £40 or £50 for the book, apparently the only money he ever earned by his pen, which sum he spent in providing a farewell banquet to twelve of his schoolfellows.
There is a tradition that Shelley's grandfather, Sir Bysshe, paid for the printing at Horsham of some of the boy's earliest writings, but apparently none of these efforts has survived. Local printing offices seem to have had an attraction for Shelley; we shall see later that he printed books at Dublin, Barnstaple, Oxford, Leghorn, and Pisa.
Shelley's selection of Worthing, rather than Horsham, for his next venture may have been determined by his desire for secrecy. He made a selection of seventeen poems by himself and his sister Elizabeth with the title of Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire, and put it into the hands of C. and W. Phillips, of Worthing. A daughter of the printer, "an intelligent, brisk young woman," was the active member of the firm, with whom Shelley was on very good terms. Shelley took great interest in the technical side of the business, and spent hours in the printing office learning typesetting. Some months later when at Oxford he had occasion to find a printer for his pamphlet, The Necessity of Atheism, he again resorted to Messrs. Phillips, who both printed and added their names to the tract. When Shelley got into trouble in connection with The Necessity, his father's solicitors drafted a letter warning the printers of an impending prosecution, and recommending them not to proceed with the printing of any manuscripts that they might have by Shelley. Apparently the letter was never sent, and no prosecution was instituted against the printers, as Munday, the Oxford bookseller, who had been an unwilling agent in selling the pamphlet, sent a similar warning to them.
Before the printing of the Original Poetry of Victor and Cazire was completed, Shelley called on J. J. Stockdale, a publisher in Pall Mall, and persuaded him to publish the volume. Stockdale was a man with a doubtful past, who had issued a good deal of verse on commission for obscure verse-writers, besides the scandalous Memoirs of Harriette Wilson. In later years he described, in Stockdale's Budget, a curious publication which is to be seen in the British Museum, how he received 1480 copies of the Original Poetry, and how he discovered, after some of them had been sent out to the press, that the volume contained a poem by M. G. Lewis. On inviting Shelley to explain this circumstance, the poet "expressed the warmest resentment at the imposition practised upon him by the coadjutor," and instructed Stockdale to destroy all the remaining copies; only three or four are now known to have survived. In the meantime Stockdale had undertaken to revive and publish Shelley's second novel, St. Irvyne: or, the Rosicrucian. The author's expectation to get at least £60 for this romance from Robinson, the publisher of Zastrozzi, was not realised, as the terms arranged with Stockdale were that the book should be published at the author's expense. The publisher mournfully recorded the fact some years later that the romance did not sell, and that he was never paid for the printer's bill. While St. Irvyne was going through the press Shelley used to call at Stockdale's shop. The publisher became alarmed at the tone of Shelley's conversation, and, in the hope that his intentions would be well received, he communicated his suspicions to Shelley's father. Mr. Timothy Shelley, however, only snubbed Stockdale for his pains. Shelley was furious at the interference, and all hopes of obtaining a settlement of his bill vanished.
When Mr. Timothy Shelley took his son up to Oxford in October, 1810, he called with him at the shop of Munday & Slatter, the booksellers, where he advised him to get his supplies of books and stationery. Then, turning to the bookseller, he said, "My son here has a literary turn, he is already an author, and do pray indulge him in his printing freaks." A month later Shelley took some of his verses to Munday, who agreed to publish them. His friend Hogg saw the proofs and, ridiculing their intended sincerity, suggested that with some corrections they would make burlesque poetry. Shelley somewhat reluctantly agreed, and the verses were altered to fit the title of The Posthumous Verses of Margaret Nicholson, edited by her nephew, John Fitzvictor. The lady in question was a mad washerwoman, who had attempted the life of George III. in 1786, and was in 1810 still an inmate of Bedlam, though nominally dead as far as the world was concerned.
The fictitious nephew Fitzvictor was apparently a son of the Victor who had but recently collaborated with the peccant Cazire. When Shelley informed the bookseller that he had changed his mind about publishing, and showed him the altered verses, Munday was so pleased with the idea that he offered to publish the book on his own account, promising secrecy and as many gratis copies as might be required. The book was issued as a bold quarto, and it became the fashion, says Hogg, among gownsmen to be seen reading it in the High Street, "as a mark of nice discernment of a delicate and fastidious taste in poetry and the very criterion of a choice spirit." Shelley was frequently in Munday & Slatter's shop, where he was in the habit of talking on his favourite subjects. The booksellers, like Stockdale, became uneasy at the tone of his conversation and endeavoured to reason with him. Failing to make any impression, they persuaded him to meet a Mr. Hobbes, for whom they afterwards published a poetical work called The Widower. Mr. Hobbes undertook "to analyse Shelley's arguments, and endeavoured to refute them philosophically." But Shelley was not convinced; he declined to reply in writing to Mr. Hobbes' arguments, and declared that he would rather meet any or all of the dignitaries of the Church than one philosopher. If Mr. Hobbes' arguments were no better than his verses, Shelley was fully justified in his objections. Mr. Slatter, who has left a record of these facts, tells us that when some months later Shelley strewed the windows and counters of Munday's shop with copies of The Necessity of Atheism, which he had caused to be printed by his Worthing friends the Phillips, he instructed their shopman to sell the pamphlet as fast as he could at a charge of sixpence each. The result was magical. Mr. Walker, Fellow of New College, dropped into the shop and examined the tract and drew the booksellers' attention to its dangerous tendency. They resolved to destroy the copies, and promptly made a bonfire of them in the back kitchen. Shelley's expulsion from the University followed in due course.
Shelley's activities in Dublin, in February and March, 1812, made it necessary for him to employ a printer, or printers, for his two pamphlets, An Address to the Irish People and Proposals for an Association of Philanthropists, but neither of these tracts bore the name of a publisher, and there are no details forthcoming of the circumstances connected with their production. Shelley, however, placed a collection of his poems in the hands of a firm of Dublin printers, Messrs. R. and J. Stockdale, but they refused to proceed with the book until they were paid, and it was never issued. The manuscript was recovered after Shelley left Dublin, and remained unprinted for seventy years, until Professor Dowden included some selections from it in his Life of Shelley.
I can find no record of when or how Shelley first met Thomas Hookham, but his earliest published letter to him, July 29th, 1812, was evidently preceded by others that have not been preserved. Hookham's Library was an old-established business in Old Bond Street, and about the year 1811 Thomas Hookham the younger and his brother Edward started publishing on their own account at their father's address. They issued the second edition of Peacock's The Genius of the Thames and The Philosophy of Melancholy, and Hogg's novel, Memories of Prince Alexy Haimatoff, of which Shelley subsequently wrote a review. Shelley sent Thomas Hookham copies of his Letter to Lord Ellenborough, which he had printed at Barnstaple, but the tract shared the same fate as The Necessity of Atheism, and was destroyed by the printer as a dangerous publication. One copy was preserved by Hookham, the only one now known to exist; it is in the Bodleian Library. In March, 1813, when Shelley was in Dublin for the second time, he sent Hookham the manuscript of Queen Mab, and added that he was preparing the notes to be printed with the poem, which was to be long, philosophical, and anti-Christian. "Do not," he said, "let the title-page be printed before the body of the poems. I have a motto to introduce from Shakespeare and a preface. I shall expect no success. Let only 250 copies be printed in a small neat quarto, on fine paper, and so as to catch the aristocrats. They will not read it, but their sons and daughters may." Nothing further seems to be known about the printing of the poem. It was issued as a small octavo, with a title-page bearing the name of Shelley as author as well as printer, and the address of his father-in-law, 23 Chapel Street, Grosvenor Square. The late Mr. Edward Hookham, Thomas Hookham's nephew, stated that Queen Mab was the cause of Shelley's quarrel with Hookham. A coolness was certainly evident between the poet and the publisher after Shelley came to London in 1813. Queen Mab may have been placed in the printer's hands before Hookham saw the notes, and when he saw them he probably declined to go on with the book or allow it to bear his name. But Shelley's connection with Hookham, which previous to this rupture had been friendly, was not entirely severed, for Hookham's imprint, with Ollier's, appears on The History of a Six Week's Tour, 1817. Thomas Hookham was a cultivated and well-read man and the author of an anonymous little record of foreign travel which he undertook during the same year as Shelley's visit to the Continent, and published as A Walk through Switzerland in September, 1816. He is said to have written the Shelley Memorials, which is described on the title-page as by Lady Shelley, the wife of Shelley's son. Thomas Hookham's brother, Edward, was the friend and correspondent of Thomas Love Peacock, whose letters to him have been lately printed.
The Vindication of Natural Diet, Shelley's vegetarian tract, was reprinted in 1813 from one of the notes to Queen Mab. As the text of the pamphlet differs in some respects from that as given with the poem, it is evident that Shelley was responsible for the reprint, which was issued by J. Calow, a medical bookseller in Soho. Nothing, however, is known of the circumstances connected with the publication of this tract, and there are no references to it in Shelley's published correspondence.
John Murray was not one of Shelley's publishers, but he had some correspondence in 1816 with the Great Cham of Albemarle Street. In his first letter he described himself as "a total stranger" and offered Murray the publication of Alastor, of which he had printed 250 copies at his own expense. The offer was declined, and the book was subsequently published by two firms, Baldwin, Craddock & Joy, of Paternoster Row, and Carpenter & Son, of Old Bond Street. In the summer of that year Shelley was in Switzerland with Byron, who requested him to correct and see through the press the third canto of Childe Harold and The Prisoner of Chillon. Shelley brought the MS. of the Childe with him to England, and when he saw Murray he reminded him that he wished to see the proofs. From a later letter it appears that Murray announced the poems without sending the proofs to Shelley, who at once wrote urging him to carry out Byron's request.
The names of the Olliers, Shelley's last publishers, first appear on the title-page of his Hermit of Marlow pamphlet, A Proposal for Putting Reform to the Vote throughout the Kingdom, 1817. This tract must have been one of the first publications of Charles and James Ollier to bear their imprint, for they commenced business at 3 Welbeck Street, Cavendish Square, in the year 1817. The Ollier family was of French descent, but they had been settled in the West of England for many years. Charles Ollier, Shelley's correspondent in his negotiations with the firm, was born at Bath in 1788, came up to London and entered a banking house. At an early age he showed a liking for literature, and developed a taste for collecting and reading old books. He subsequently became an author and the friend of authors, among whom was Leigh Hunt, who probably introduced him to Shelley. Ollier and Hunt were both devoted to the theatre and to music. Hunt addressed his verses, "A Thought on Music: suggested by a Private Concert, May 13th, 1815," to Ollier, who published some volumes of Hunt's poetry. One of the earliest of the Olliers' publications was Keats's first volume of Poems, 1817. The book, unhappily, was not well received, and Keats, who attributed its want of success to the neglect of his publishers, took his next volume, Endymion, to another firm. The Olliers published besides Lamb's works in two volumes, 1818, and Ollier's own stories, Altham and His Wife and Inesilla, all of which are mentioned in the letters printed below. Shelley followed up his pamphlet with a more ambitious venture, namely, Laon and Cythna, which he printed at his own expense, and arranged for it to be published jointly by Sherwood, Neeby, & Jones, and the Olliers. Before the book was published, but after some copies had been sent out, Ollier discovered in the poem certain passages which he regarded as too frank for circulation, at least by his hands. Shelley agreed, though not without some vigorous protests, to tone down the offending expressions, and the book was issued, with the names of the Olliers alone, as The Revolt of Islam. The correspondence relating to this and other matters has been published, but the following letters to Ollier have not, so far as I am aware, been printed, except portions of the first and last. Ollier apparently kept all the letters that he received from Shelley, but when Mrs. Shelley asked for the use of them, he declined on the score that they were valuable to him and he had been offered no money.
To conclude these remarks on Ollier, it may be mentioned that he also published for Shelley The Cenci, second edition (1821), Rosalind and Helen (1819), Prometheus Unbound (1820), Epipsychidion (1821), and Hellas (1822). He also issued a publication called Olliers' Literary Miscellany (1820), to which Peacock contributed an essay on Poetry. This essay prompted Shelley to write as a reply his eloquent Defence of Poetry, which was intended for a later issue, but the first was the only number issued. The Olliers abandoned publishing in 1822, the year of Shelley's death. Their want of success was attributed to a lack of business capacity on the part of the partners and insufficient capital.