Posts from the Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle

On May 4, 2021, a group of scholars and admirers of both Shelleys gathered online to celebrate a milestone in the editing of his poems: the appearance of Volume VII of The Complete Poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley from the Johns Hopkins University Press, edited by Nora Crook. The online event is available for viewing.

In this episode, NYPL’s Liz Denlinger and Professor Michelle Levy of Simon Fraser University analyzed an album of letters by "Eminent Women," collected by a London librarian and self-professed sufferer of “autographic mania,” William Upcott.

"I wondered: could it be a fragment by Browning himself, somehow neglected by Browning scholars? Might it be the beginnings of a work by someone else? I set myself the task to try to identify just who wrote this curious fragment."

As part of our series on researchers who use NYPL collections for their work, we interview an NYU student about his favorite Library spaces, places to work, and even lunch choices.

Happy 235th Birthday to English poet, journalist, and literary critic Leigh Hunt, born this day in 1784. Though not often remembered for his own writings, Hunt had a major influence on British literature of the 19th century.

The Pforzheimer Collection recently acquired a rare piece of early-19th century Parisian culinary ephemera: a large, printed menu from the food shop at the Hôtel des Américains, which carried international delicacies, wines, and liquors.

Godwin’s views of grammar contribute invaluably to the layout of eighteenth-century and Romantic period conversations about the study of the English language.

Featuring over a dozen treasures from the Collection, the exhibit includes the manuscript of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s first known extant poem, a lock of Mary Shelley’s hair, and a preliminary design for Lord Byron’s yacht.

A discussion with Dr. Simon Reader, a professor at CUNY Staten Island, about Middlemarch, and the implications of this first edition appearing in digital format.

From 1750 to 1830, the legal landscape of Great Britain was significantly transformed. An accusatory form of trial gave way to an adversarial format—which was echoed in the periodical wars of the romantic press.

Shelley's literary response to the events in England was less judicious than Byron's. Oedipus Tyrannus; or, Swellfoot the Tyrant, a two-act barnyard burlesque in which all the leading political figures of the day were satirized, was rushed into print in London and caught the censor's eye the moment it appeared.

When the dissolute, spendthrift son of George III ascended the throne, he wished to rid himself of his wife, Caroline, from whom he had long been estranged, and instituted divorce proceedings against her in the House of Lords. The "trial" lasted for eleven weeks during the summer and autumn of 1820.

…To continue: you will recall that I was embarking on an attempt to explain the note at the bottom of p. 11 of Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire in the copy owned by the New York Public Library. To refresh your memory, here is the picture again—the note reads: Now for God's sake be secret / you will understand why I / wish you to be particularly so.

Here at the Pforzheimer Collection, our big acquisition of the year is a black tulip, one of the rarest items in the Shelleyan world: Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire, 1810, Shelley's first book of verse. Lost to the public eye shortly after its publication and believed, till 1898, to have vanished altogether, only three other copies are known. Even the Bodleian Library, holder of the best Shelley collection in the world, does not own it.

Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866), novelist, poet, trade company official, steam engine expert and gourmet—a Renaissance man of the Romantic age—once convinced his friend and fellow poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, a passionate vegetarian, to cave in to meat-eating.

The New York Public Library is pleased to announce the awarding of Short-Term Fellowships to support the following scholars from outside New York who will research the Library's archival and special collections between July 1, 2012 and June 30, 2013.

Dorot Jewish Division and Slavic, Baltic, and Eastern European Collections  

In the early months of 1832, London was experiencing a devastating public health crisis. A cholera outbreak, which originated in India and had had been lurching across Europe for years, finally arrived in Britain's metropolis. Officials were ill-equipped to contain the infection. The city was nearly quarantined, and eventually the "Cholera Morbis" claimed thousands of lives — among those that of William Godwin, Jr., the younger 

Twelve treasures from the New York Public Library’s Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle will be featured in Shelley’s Ghost: Reshaping the Image of a Literary Family, a major exhibition which opens today at Oxford University’s Bodleian Library.