Lot 131
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
The Masque of Anarchy
Estimate: £300 - £500
Auction: 19 September 2024 from 10:00 BST
Description
A Poem. Now first published, with a Preface by Leigh Hunt. London: Edward Moxon, 1832. First edition, small 8vo, xxx 47 pp., contemporary pink moiré cloth with printed paper spine-label (possibly an original binding not noted by Wise), half-title, advertisement leaf, a little sunning to extremities, loss to spine-label, front free endpaper excised [Wise, Shelley p. 71]
Provenance
The Library of a Scottish Gentleman
Footnote
Wise describes the original binding as pale grey-blue paper boards, with other copies noted in sale records as being in pink paper boards. The spine-label on the present copy, lettered vertically ‘Shelley’s Masque', though with the second word now largely worn away, matches that described by Wise, lending force to the impression that the binding is original. 'A satirical yet visionary ballad, [The Masque of Anarchy was] written in response to the infamous Peterloo massacre that took place in Manchester in August. Like many of Shelley's most uncompromising works … [it] was published only after Shelley's death (in 1832 by Leigh Hunt, to whom it had been sent by Shelley, who hoped that his friend might publish the poem in his literary and political paper, The Examiner)' (ODNB).
