Books

First edition, an "unmutilated" copy with title page and final leaf intact, and including the poetic dedication to Harriet Shelley. Copies in this state and in the original boards are extremely rare; we can trace only three copies offered at auction in almost half a century. This "unmutilated" state has always been preferred by collectors and has consistently fetched far higher prices than "mutilated" copies. The "unmutilated" state offers one of the most inflammatory title pages of the era. Knowing that only a very few would see it, Shelley was free to give vent to his revolutionary and atheistical fervour. The title carries a quotation from every freethinker's favourite Latin author, Lucretius, and Archimedes's aphorism in Greek: "Only give me a place on which to stand, and I shall move the whole world." Bolder yet was the cry "Ecrasez l'Infame!" from the Correspondance de Voltaire. Voltaire was referring to the established Church, but the Illuminists had adopted the same phrase as their motto to refer specifically to Christ. As Harriet Shelley wrote to a friend in Dublin (21 May 1813), "Do you [know] any one that would wish for so dangerous a gift?" Queen Mab was Shelley's most provocative poem and a key radical text in the early years of the 19th century. The entire edition comprised 250 copies, published by Thomas Hookham for private distribution by Shelley himself. Because of its radical contents, Hookham refused to put his name on the title page. As a publisher's name and address had to be provided by law, Shelley agreed to provide his own name and address on the title and terminal page. Fearful of prosecution, when Shelley distributed the copies, he cut away the title page and excised his name from the final leaf. As his marriage with Harriet broke down with his elopement with Mary Godwin after the summer of 1814, Shelley also removed from the copies he distributed the poetic dedication leaf to Harriet as "the inspiration of my song". This copy is consequently one of the copies which survived "unmutilated", without excision of Shelley's name or the dedication to Harriet. It was the radical publisher Richard Carlile who issued the remainder shortly after Shelley's death in 1822. This copy has a distinguished provenance. A pencil note states that it was "from the private collection of A. S. W. Rosenbach". Known as "the greatest bookdealer in the World", Dr Rosenbach (1876-1952) was "the terror of the auction room" and remembered as "the Pied Piper of rare editions". In his autobiographical volume Books and Bidders (1927), Rosenbach refers to several copies of Queen Mab which passed through his hands. Of one he notes, "I also trembled when first holding this Queen Mab in my hands". Louis H. Silver (1902 63), an American book collector, started collecting in the 1930s. After his death, his collection was acquired by the Newberry Library of Chicago, who sold a number of books regarded as duplicates at auction. This copy was at Sotheby's, 9 November 1965, lot 301, when it was acquired by John F. Fleming, the bookdealer. Abel E. Berland, a Chicago real estate lawyer, was a bibliophile and collector of rare manuscripts. This copy sold in his sale at Christie's, New York, 8 October 2001, lot 105. Granniss pp. 28 35; Hayward 225; Wise, Shelley Library, pp. 39 40. Octavo (198 x 118 mm). Original drab boards without spine label, as issued. Housed in a custom red morocco-backed folding box. Book labels of Louis H. Silver and Abel E. Berland on front pastedown. "Fairy" added to margin of page 35 (leaf D2) in a contemporary hand. Joints cracked; else a remarkably fine copy.

Queen Mab, A Philosophical Poem; With Notes, often referred to as Queen Mab, is the first large poetic work written by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822), the English Romantic poet. After substantial reworking, a portion of the text was later issued as The Daemon of the World.