Books

First edition of Shelley's finest poem, an elegy which ranks with "Lycidas", In Memoriam, and Gray's Elegy as the greatest elegiac poems in English. Keats died at Rome of consumption in his 24th year, on 23 February 1821, and by June Shelley had completed Adonais in Pisa, where it was beautifully printed in an edition of perhaps 250 copies. Shelley himself called it the "least imperfect" of his works. The preface contains the famous condemnation of the critics whose adverse comments on Endymion were thought by Shelley to have caused the breakdown of Keats's health. Quarto (208 x 130mm). Early 20th-century full brown morocco by Sangorski & Sutcliffe, covers with strapwork borders in blind, gilt-rules and gilt dots, spine similarly decorated in blind and gilt in six compartments with raised bands, board edges gilt-ruled, turn-ins with double gilt rule and blind-stamped and gilt floral cornerpieces, all edges gilt. Housed in custom fleece-lined clamshell box. Some light spotting, mostly at start, outer margin trimmed, the binding fresh and sound, excellent condition. Granniss 66-8; Grolier English 100, 73; Hayward 229; Wise, Shelley, pp. 59-60.