To CHARLES OLLIER.
[Great Marlow],
March 14, 1817.
Dear Sir,—Be so kind as to let the Books I ordered (so far as you have completed them) to be sent together with my prints immediately—by the Marlow Coach.
Mr. Hunt has, I believe, commissioned you to get me a proof impression of a print done from a drawing by Harlowe of Lord Byron: I said that it should be framed in oak, but I have changed my mind and wish it to be finished in black.
How does the pamphlet sell?
Dear sir, yours very truly,
P. B. Shelley.
Send in addition Mawe's Gardening Calendar.
Marlow,
April 23, 1817.
Mr. Shelley requests Messrs. Ollier will have the goodness to send the books and the little pictures as soon as they can.
In great haste,
Bagni di Lucca,
June 28, 1818.
Dear Sir,—I write simply to request you to pay ten pounds on my account to a person who will call on you, and on no account to mention my name. If you have no money of mine still pay it at all events and cash the enclosed at the bank.
Ever most truly yours,
P. B. Shelley.
The person will bring a note without date signed A. B.
It is of so great consequence that this note should be paid that I hope if there is any mistake with Brookes you will pay it for me, and if you have none of mine in your hands, that you will rely on my sending it you by return of Post.
[Postmark] F. P. O., Se[p.] 1, 1818.
Dear Sir,—Oblige me by honouring a draft of £20 that will be presented to you signed A. B. If there should be any mistake with the bankers it shall be rectified by return of Post, but I earnestly intreat you to pay the draft.
Of course these letters are put to my account.
Sir, yours very truly,
Percy B. Shelley.
I had just sealed my other letter when I discovered the necessity of writing again.
Probably August 20 to 24, 1819.
Dear Sir,—Yesterday evening came your parcel, which seems to have been above a year on its voyage. Be good enough to write soon, instantly, about my books, etc., and how the eclogue[10] sells, and whether you wish to continue to publish for me. I have no inclination to change unless you wish it, as your neglect might give me reason to suppose. I have only had time to look at Lamb's works, but Altham and Endymion are both before me.
[10] Rosalind and Helen.
I have two works of some length, one of a very popular character, ready for the press.
Be good enough to pay for me seven pounds to Mr. Hunt.
With best wishes for your literary and all other success.
I am, yours truly,
P. B. Shelley.
Pray send a copy of my Poem or anything which I may hereafter publish to Mr. Keats with my best regards.[11]
[11] Shelley had cancelled here "If I should say when I have read it that I admire Endymion he probably."
Accept my thanks for Altham and His Wife: I have no doubt that the pleasure in store for me this evening will make me desire the company of their cousin Inesilla.
Postmark May 30, 1820.
Pray tell me—are there any differences between you and Mr. Hunt, and if so, do they regard the advance either made or proposed to be made to him on my quitting England?
You know I pledged myself to you to see all right [on] that subject, and if any dispute should have arisen without giving me an opportunity of arranging it, I have reason to think myself slighted—I imagine you cannot mistake the motives which suggest this question. Mrs. Shelley is now transcribing for me the little poems to be printed at the end of Prometheus; they will be sent in a post or two.
Pisa,
April 30, 1820.
Dear Sir,—I observe that an edition of The Cenci is advertised as published in Paris by Galignani.[12] This, though a piracy both upon the author and the publisher, is a proof of an expectation of a certain demand for sale that probably will soon exhaust the small edition I sent you. In your reprint you will be guided of course by the apparent demand. I send a list of errata; the incorrectness of the forms of typography, etc., which are considerably numerous, you will be so obliging as to attend to yourself. I cannot describe the trouble I had with the Italian printer.
[12] This edition was never published.
I request you to give me an immediate answer to the questions of my last letters. Reynell the printer has sent in his account for the Six Weeks' Tour, which of course I counted upon to pay from the profits—and I therefore suspend my answer until I receive yours and Hookham's accounts. I do not particularly care about an account item by item. I only wish to possess a general idea of our mutual situations in regard to profit and loss—and this will be afforded by your reply to my late letters, which I reiterate my request that you will be good enough to attend to.
Mr. and Mrs. Gisborne, my particular friends, are now on the point of leaving Italy; they will call on you; and any politeness in your power to them I shall regard as a particular favour to myself. Be kind enough to present them with copies of whatever I have published. They only propose to stay in England a few weeks.
I beg you to send me all the abuse.
Dear Sir,
Your obliged faithful Servt.,
Percy B. Shelley.
Address Pisa.
I have just heard from Mr. Hunt, who tells me that you propose publishing Peter Bell. This I have no objection to provided my name is entirely suppressed, not that I am not ready to answer to anything that it contains, but that I think it a trifle unworthy of me seriously to acknowledge.
Naples,
February 29, 1818.
Postmark F.P.O., Mr. 20, 1819.
Dear Sir,—Pray let me hear from you addressed to Rome on the several subjects of my last letter, and especially to inform me of the name of the ship and the mode of address by which my box was sent. As yet I have no tidings of it.
Your obliged servant,
Percy B. Shelley.
N.B.—If you do not write within three months after the receipt of this address as before, Mr. Gisborne, Livorno.
Pisa,
June 16, 1821.
Dear Sir,—I am requested to propose to you, for publication, a work, of which the accompanying sheets are a specimen, on the terms stated in the enclosed paper; that is that you should defray the expenses of printing, etc., and divide the profits with the author.[13] Should you object to this arrangement, be kind enough to tell me on what terms, short of the author's entire risk, you would be inclined to engage in it.
[13] This work, a commentary by Taafe on Dante, was printed, like Adonais, at Pisa by a printer who used the types of Didot, the celebrated French typefounder. Byron interested himself in the book, and it was subsequently published by John Murray. Professor Dowden printed the middle paragraph of this letter.
The more considerable portion of this work will consist of the comment. I have read with much attention this portion, as well as the verses, up to the eighth Canto; and I do not hesitate to assure you that the lights which the annotator's labours have thrown on the obscurer parts of the text are such as all foreigners and most Italians would derive an immense additional knowledge of Dante from. They elucidate a great number of the most interesting facts connected with Dante's history of his times; and everywhere bear the mark of a most elegant and accomplished mind. I know you will not take my opinion on Poetry, because I thought my own verses very good, and you find that the public declare them to be unreadable. Show this to Mr. Procter, who is far better qualified to judge than I am. There are certainly passages of great strength and conciseness; indeed the author has sacrificed everything to represent his original truly, in this latter point pray observe the great beauty of the typography; they are the same types as my elegy on Keats is printed from.
You cannot do me a greater favour than in making some satisfactory arrangement with the author. Of course I cannot expect, nor do I wish, that you should undertake any thing that should not fairly promise to promote your own interest. But pray allow my recommendation to overbalance, if your determination should be in equilibrium. I feel persuaded that I am recommending a most excellent work, and one without which the history and the spirit of the age of Dante as relates to him will never be understood by the English students of that astonishing poet.
Dear sir, your obliged and obt. servt.,
Percy B. Shelley.
Pisa, June 16, 1821.